Despite DVB being one of the country’s largest independent news organisations, it was forced underground after the military junta seized control four years ago, and is broadcast from nearby Thailand.
“Most journalists in Myanmar can’t say they are journalists any more, so most of them operate as citizen journalists,” Kyaw said. “That’s how I know from my sources that there are now more than 350 people dead.”
Myanmar’s military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (centre in green) inspects a damaged road in Naypyidaw .Credit: AP
Khin Moe, 53, who arrived in Australia six months ago from Yangon, had less success getting information about the welfare of her brother, sister and parents at home.
“They are OK now, but I couldn’t make contact with anyone at home or get any information for hours after the earthquake,” Moe said.
Kyaw and Moe joined other members of the Myanmar community at the University of Technology Sydney for this weekend’s Australian debut of Burma’s Peacock Film Festival, celebrating independent journalism and filmmaking from Myanmar.
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Kyaw said she was not surprised to read the military government had made an international appeal for help given the scale of the destruction, the collapse of so many buildings in and around Mandalay, and buckled train tracks and collapsed roads.
As DVB footage broadcast the arrival of 37 rescue workers from China, and the United Nations allocated $US5 million ($7.9 million) to relief efforts, Kyaw said she doubted all the necessary aid would be used for its intended purpose.
“Of that $US5 million, there will be $US1 million for the people, and the other $US4 million to the government,” Kyaw said.
It was a sentiment shared by warehouse manager at logistics giant Toll Group, Aung Naing.
“[Foreign] money sent to the junta will be used, but it will be mainly used for propaganda and in support of the government’s troops and supporters,” said Naing, 56. “It needs to go to organisations that are on the ground supporting the people.”
Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates consultancy, said from Bangkok that a creative approach was required as the epicentre of the earthquake was “also the epicentre of the ethnic Burman resistance” to the junta.
“Those areas are war zones,” he said. “It’s very unlikely that those areas are going to get the kinds of assistance that they need.
“These earthquakes happened in the middle of Friday prayers … there are people who died in mosque collapses across the country.”
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Human Rights Watch Asia director Elaine Pearson said it was becoming clear the areas hit hardest were military controlled, but there were casualties across the country.
“This is a brutal military that is essentially in a state of war against many of its own population and has committed years of atrocities against them, including crimes against humanity and acts of genocide,” she said. “About half of the country is not even under military control.”
Turnell said: “I’m just hoping the Australian government and the international community more broadly does its homework, so that [aid] doesn’t end up in the hands of the junta.”
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