Myanmar earthquake: “I feel guilty

The last time the state-of-the-art Ku-ku ning saw that his uncle was in July, in his house the banks of the Iravad River.

Ko -ning, a supporter of Myanmar’s resistance against the military junta, was going to leave the country. Living in Ming Kun, a small city in the military stronghold, Ko, Ko, Ko, NAting did not trust anyone to tell them about his plan – except for his beloved Oo (“Uncle” in Burmese).

“I told him he was going to Thailand. He thought it was a good plan. He wished me good health and security,” Ko-Ning reminded, a 35-year-old labor activist.

Almost a year, Ko Naing in Thailand is safe. But his oo oo was killed by a powerful earthquake, which last Friday struck the saga, taking at least 2000 lives.

“I have sleepless nights. I am still suffering,” Koi said.

“I have no remorse for leaving the country because I had to. But I feel guilty because our people are most needed. I feel helpless.”

Ko Naing is one of the millions of Myanmar’s diaspora, which looks forward from afar when their country is fighting after the largest earthquake over the century.

Like him, many feel the survival guilt and the feeling of helplessness. For some, these feelings are deteriorating by the fact that they cannot easily come back to help rescue efforts or check relatives because they will face political persecution.

Thailand is conducting the world’s largest community in the Myanmar Diaspora with about 4.3 million Myanmar citizens, although it is supposed to have a figure when it includes undocumented migrants.

As a wealthy neighbor, it has long attracted people from Myanmar, who make up most of their migration labor. The 2021 military coup and the next civil war only destroyed their ranks.

Some work in the construction sector – many of the 400 workers in Bangkok’s skyscrapers, which fell apart from the earthquake, was considered from Myanmar – and others work in agriculture and seafood in Thailand.

On the insincere morning on Monday in Samut Sakhon, a fishing port near Bangkok, where many workers from Myanmar, men wearing traditional Burmese longs, and women from Tanaka, recruited on their cheeks, pressed the lanes of the morning market.

Banner advertising sim cards with cheap tariffs to call Myanmar were covered in buildings, while shops showed signs both in Thai and Burmese.

“We saw videos on the Internet that fell apart the buildings, and the people who are trapped under the rubble. We are so sad that nothing is able to do,” said a 30-year-old Factory Yin, who, like many in the crowd, is going home.

The 28-year-old shopkeeper Tant Zin, who did not affect the earthquake, mourned the collapse of the Agreement and temples in his area. “What a catastrophe! I feel so bad … We have never felt such a degree of harm before.”

All the city, Ning was sitting in his office, checking up his family updates in Myanmar. At least 150 of his relatives live in the passage and around the mandala.

The earthquake on Friday was so huge that it could be felt in Thailand, India and China. On the day when Ko Ning was lying in bed in Sam Samhon hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter, he said he felt that the room was shaking about 30 seconds.

He immediately went into social media and found that the earthquake had occurred next to Mi Kong. Then he came across a picture of Ava Bridge Sagaing – a local attraction – lay in crippled ruins in the Iravad River. “I was shocked and devastated, I have a lot of relatives in this area. I thought,” It should be fake news. “But it was real.”

With slow communication in Myanmar in the immediate offensive of the earthquake, Ko Ning heard only his relatives on Saturday. Almost everyone was safe and took into account, he was told, except for the distant warming, who died in Mandalai and his oo.

A week earlier, Min Kun and his surroundings were fired at by the military aimed at resisting the People’s Defense. Almost the entire Ka Nining family in the city fled to the Sagan city or into the control of military administration in Mandala.

Oo -oo gave up Decamp and leaning in the village monastery, knowing that the military would not attack Buddhist places.

But on Friday, the monastery fell apart when the earthquake struck. His body was found in rubble on Monday.

Ko Ning remembers how oo-oo 60-year-old. In the area where the military prevails, they were able to contact the overall resistance support, especially after the coup.

In the summer, they spent afternoon near the river, eating and catching up with the news. His grandfather had no telephone and no social media, and Ko Naing will help him check the updates about the civil war. “I was his personal news agency,” he joked.

Oo oo had to leave the job as a boat when he moved a stroke that left it partially paralyzed. However, every morning he switched to the tea store of his family and fry EE KYAR KWE or fried stones.

“He was my source of inspiration, especially in difficult times … He was the only one I could talk to. I got his stability,” Koi Ning said.

This sustainability was something that Ko-ning had to press when he made a dangerous escape from Myanmar with his wife and five-year-old son. The military was searched for arrest warrant for participating in peaceful protests.

His family went to the border where they illegally moved to Thailand. As they ran into the darkness past the Thai border police station, the family stumbled over a large pipe and collapsed to the ground. His son fell back on his head. Ko Ning feared the worst.

But, to his relief, his son released a loud cry. Ko Ning hit his baby’s mouth, raised him and went to ensure that the smuggler was waiting for their motorcycle. For the first time, they headed to the Thai city of May, before they eventually went to Samut Sakhon, where they secured the right to remain in Thailand.

Although he is now safe and has a good job, Ko Ning said: “Honestly, I am very oppressed at that moment.

“At first there was a pandemic, then the coup, then the military killed people who opposed. People were moved.

“Then the earthquake added suffering. Even after the earthquake, the military continues bombing.

“I keep thinking what it would be good if we can be there if we can do something … it depresses life here, seeing the news about my country.”

It works with the Myanmar Diaspora to gather donations and send humanitarian aid to the earthquake victims. They also help the Myanmar builders who suffered from Bangkok’s collapse.

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

“We have to decide how to restore, how we can move on.”