More international aid heads to Myanmar

Countries have pledged millions in assistance to help Myanmar and humanitarian aid organizations with the monumental task ahead.

Australia on Wednesday said it was providing another $4.5 million, in addition to $1.25 million it had already committed, and had a rapid response team on the ground.

India has flown in aid and sent two Navy ships with supplies as well as providing some 200 rescue workers. Multiple other countries have sent teams, including 270 people from China, 212 from Russia and 122 from the United Arab Emirates.

A three-person team from the U.S. Agency for International Development arrived Tuesday to determine how best to respond given limited U.S. resources due to the slashing of the foreign aid budget and dismantling of the agency as an independent operation. Washington said on the weekend it would provide $2 million in emergency assistance.

Extent of devastation beyond major cities is still unclear

Most of the details so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the earthquake, and the capital Naypyitaw, about 270 kilometers (165 miles) north of Mandalay.

Many areas are without power, telephone or cell connections, and difficult to reach by road, but more reports are beginning to trickle in.

In Singu township, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Mandalay, 27 gold miners were killed were killed in a cave-in, the independent Democratic Voice of Burma reported.

In the area of Inle Lake, northeast of the capital, many people died when homes built on wooden stilts in the water collapsed in the earthquake, the government's official Global New Light of Myanmar reported without providing specific figures.

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