Bangkok, Thailand – As Myanmar slowly recovers from the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that killed thousands in March, an even greater catastrophe continues to shape the nation’s future – this one man-made.Myanmar remains gripped by a civil war and after four years of fighting the military regime finds itself increasingly encircled.
But the impact of the earthquake could prove decisive for the conflict in the coming year.
Striking in Myanmar’s central Sagaing Region on March 28, the quake killed at least 3,649 people, with more than 5,000 injured and 145 still missing, according to figures from the military government.
The seismic shock flattened houses, factories, Buddhist pagodas, apartment blocks and brought down bridges and ripped up roads in Sagaing city and nearby Mandalay.
It also disrupted electricity supplies to factories producing munitions for the military, said Tin Lin Aung, a former major in Myanmar’s army who defected to the resistance movement in 2022.
In a clear sign that military supplies are stretched, bullet and artillery casings recently captured from government forces bear this year’s manufacturing date, Tin Lin Aung said. Advertisement
“When I was in the military, we used to joke that some of the bullets were older than us,” he said.
“Now they are being used straight away,” he said.
The reported interruption to the military’s ammunition production comes as areas the army still controls in Myanmar are surrounded on almost all sides by longstanding ethnic armed groups and newer armed opposition force …