Myanmar Quake: “I feel guilty

The last time the soy Co Naing saw his great -grandfather was in July, in his home from the banks of the Iravadi River.

Ko Naing, a supporter of Myanmar’s resistance to the military junta, was about to escape from the country. Living in Min Kun, a small town in the Military Sagging Fortress, Ko Naing did not trust anyone enough to tell them about his plan – except for his beloved Oo Oo (Uncle in Burmese).

“I told him I was going to Thailand. He thought it was a good plan. He wished me good health and safety,” Ko Naing remembers, a 35-year-old labor rights activist.

For about a year onwards, Ko Naing is safe in Thailand. But his OO OO was killed by a powerful earthquake, which hit the saga near Mandalay last Friday, taking at least 2000 life.

“I have sleepless nights. I’m still suffering,” Ko Naing said.

“I have no concerns to leave the country because I had to. But I feel guilty because our people need us most now. I feel helpless.”

Ko Naing is one of the millions of Myanmar’s diaspora with anxiety to observe from afar while their country has been fighting after its biggest earthquake in a century.

Like him, many are guilty of Survivor and a sense of helplessness. For some, these feelings are complicated by the fact that they cannot easily return to help with rescue efforts or check relatives as they would face political persecution.

Thailand hosts the world’s largest community of Myanmar Diaspora with about 4.3 million Myanmar citizens, although the figure is thought to be much higher if it includes undocumented migrants.

As a more rich neighbor, he has long attracted people from Myanmar, who make up much of their migrant workforce. The military coup of 2021 and the subsequent civil war only swelled their ranks.

Some work in the construction sector – many of the 400 Bangkok skyscraper workers who have collapsed due to the earthquake, were thought to be from Myanmar – while others work in agriculture and the seafood industry.

In Drizli on Monday morning in Samut Sahon, a fishing port near Bangkok, which is the home of many Myanmar workers, men carrying traditional Burmese loans and women with Tanaka, enchanted on their cheeks, threw the alleys on the morning market.

Banners advertising SIM cards with cheap prices to call Myanmar were plastered in buildings, while the stores showed signs of both Thai and Burmese.

“We saw videos online on buildings, collapsing and trapped under the ruins. We feel so sad that we can’t do anything,” said 30-year-old factory worker Yin, who, like many of the crowd, is worried about the situation at home.

The 28-year-old shop of the shopkeeper Tant Zin, who is from a city in Saga, unaffected by the earthquake, complains the collapse of centuries-old pagodas and temples in his area. “What a disaster! I feel so bad … we have never experienced this degree of damage before.”

In the city, Ko Naing was sitting in her office, checking her family updates in Myanmar. At least 150 of his relatives live in or around sagling and Mandalai.

Friday’s earthquake was so huge that it could be felt in Thailand, India and China. That day, while Ko Naing lay in the bed in Samut Sahon hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter, he said he felt that the room shakes in about 30 seconds.

He immediately went to social media and discovered that the quake had become close to Min Kun. Then he came across a photo of the Ava Bridge of the Saga – a local landmark – lying in destroyed ruins in the Iravadi River. “I was shocked and devastated, I have many relatives in this area. I thought,” It must be a fake news, “but it was real.”

With the slow communications in Myanmar in the immediate consequences of the earthquake, Ko Ning was heard from his relatives on Saturday. Almost all were safe and reporting, they told him, with the exception of the distant great-alex that died in Mandalay, and his OO OO.

A week earlier, Min Kun and his environment were fired at the military aimed at the resistance of the People’s Defense Forces. Almost the entire Co Naing family in the city escaped to Saga or to a Mandalay military controlled area.

Oo Oo declined to ignite and instead sheltered in the village monastery, knowing that the military would not attack Buddhist sites.

But on Friday, the monastery collapsed completely when the earthquake struck. His body was found in the ruins on Monday.

Ko Naing remembers Oo Oo as an open and frank 60-year-old. In an area dominated by the military, they both tied their shared support for resistance, especially after the coup.

In the summer, the two would spend the afternoon by the river, lunch and catch up with the news. His great -granddaughter had no phone and he had no social media, and Ko Naing would help him check the Civil War updates. “I was his personal news agency,” he joked.

Oo Oo had to withdraw from his work as a boatman when he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Still, every morning he will move to his family’s tea and fry EE Kyar Kwe or fried dough.

“He was my source of inspiration, especially in difficult times … He was the only one I could talk to. I got my stability from him,” Ko Naing said.

This resilience was something that Co Naing had to touch when he made her dangerous escape from Myanmar with his wife and five -year -old son. He was wanted by the military who issued an order for his arrest to participate in peaceful protests.

His family was traveling to the border where they crossed illegally to Thailand. As they ran in the dark past the police station in Thailand, the family stumbled on a large pipe and descended to the ground. His son fell back on his head. Ko Naing was afraid of the worst.

But to his relief, his son missed a strong cry. Ko Naing struck his hand over the child’s mouth, lifted him, and stumbled at the smuggler who was waiting for them with a motorcycle. They first headed to the Thai city of May Sot before they eventually travel to Samut Sahon, where they secured the right to stay in Thailand.

Although it is safe now and has a good job, Ko Naing said: “To be honest, I’m very depressed right now.

“First there was a pandemic, then the coup, then the military killed people who oppose them. People are displaced.

“Then the earthquake added to suffering.

“I continue to think that it would be good if we could be there if we could do something … Here it is depressed to live, seeing the news about my country.”

He works with Myanmar’s diaspora to collect donations and send humanitarian assistance to the victims of the earthquake at home. They also help construction workers in Myanmar, affected by the collapse of the Bangkok building.

“If we always feel depressed, no one will help our people … well we are alive. We can still do something.

“We have to decide how to recover, how we can continue.”