By Feliz Solomon

Just after lunchtime on Friday, a roomful of children at a preschool in central Myanmar laid down for their afternoon nap when the earth began to shake.

The walls of the two-story Bright Kids Private School started to creak and rumble. Minutes later, concrete slabs came crashing down around them.

Hlu Hsan, a teacher, threw herself on top of three students and clutched them tightly to her chest to shield them from debris. When rescuers arrived an hour later, she begged them to save the children first, according to a first responder.

Hlu Hsan survived just long enough to see them lifted, alive, from the ruins.

Many others didn't make it. In all, 15 of the 50 children inside the school didn't survive, according to a local charity that helped lead rescue efforts. Hlu Hsan was the only one of seven teachers there on Friday who died, as the others were rescued or managed to scramble outside just in time. Another woman, a snack vendor, was also killed.

More than 1,700 have perished since a wave of powerful earthquakes ripped through the middle of the war-torn country on Friday afternoon, according to the military junta that rules Myanmar, though rescuers and earthquake experts expect the toll to be much higher. Preliminary modeling by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the number of dead could rise to tens of thousands, and the economic damage may surpass the value of Myanmar's gross domestic product.

Guided by hope and the muffled cries of those trapped beneath the rubble, rescue teams raced to find the living as their efforts passed the 72-hour mark on Monday, when chances of survival start to dim.

In Myanmar's second-largest city, Mandalay, a team of local and Chinese rescuers pulled four survivors out of a badly damaged apartment building early Monday, keeping hopes alive for another day.

The catastrophic earthquakes have unleashed more anguish on an already troubled nation. Since 2021, when Myanmar's military seized power in a coup, the ruling junta has been locked in a civil war with rebels who oppose it. The conflict has displaced more than three million of Myanmar's 55 million people and left more than a third of its population in need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

The collapse of the Bright Kids school and potentially other buildings with children inside on Friday echoes western China's Sichuan province, where many schools were destroyed in a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in 2008. The disaster killed at least 5,000 students, according to government figures, and damaged schools became a focal point of public anguish.

In Myanmar's case, aid workers and development experts have long worried about poor construction standards, given the country's poverty, though the intensity of Friday's earthquakes was enough to topple even well-constructed buildings. The National Unity Government, a shadow administration made of politicians ousted in Myanmar's coup, said at least 13,000 houses were damaged as well as hundreds of other structures, including hospitals and places of worship.

Precise information on the scope of damage isn't yet available, as affected areas are hard to access. Many of the country's independent journalists went into exile after the coup, making impartial information even harder to come by.

The tragedy at Bright Kids took place in a town called Kyaukse, about 25 miles south of Mandalay. It is close to the epicenter of the first and most powerful earthquake, a 7.7-magnitude shock. This belt of mostly agricultural land across the country's central plains is known for growing rice and specialties like turmeric, a yellow-tinted spice.

A local charity called Kyaukse Rescue rushed to the scene as soon as they heard that the private preschool had collapsed on top of children as young as 3. Part of their team collected data from survivors and families while others helped do the physical work of digging them out.

The Wall Street Journal corroborated information shared by the charity with two local residents and a member of the local fire service.

Thar Nge, a member of the group who arrived around 2 p.m., about an hour after the first earthquake struck, told the Journal it was the most heartbreaking day in all his years of responding to Myanmar's frequent tragedies.

One 4-year-old girl was wedged between a pink pillow on the floor and heavy chunks of cement when he heard her cry for help. The girl's legs were completely buried, her curly hair coated with dust.

"Save me, baba, get me out!" she cried when she saw him coming, Thar Nge said. He gave her a sip of water and told her not to worry.

He said it took his team more than two hours to carefully chip apart the cement that pinned her down and remove the pieces by hand. By then, her legs had turned an ashy gray color and she was too weak to even cry. His colleagues rushed her to a nearby hospital, but she was dead by nightfall.

"It was the worst experience of my entire life," he said. "I saw her suffering right in front of me, we tried so hard to save her."

The school's Facebook page hasn't been taken down. Photographs show smiling students performing at recitals and working in classrooms decorated with cartoons of animals like a dolphin and a worm. One wall had emojis showing different kinds of feelings, such as happy, hungry and sad.

Relatives and neighbors crowded under palm trees near the site to wait for word about their loved ones up until Saturday evening, when the last body was recovered.

Stories like theirs have been slow to emerge from the worst-hit parts of Myanmar. Even before the earthquakes, infrastructure was weak and the junta restricted internet access in many places where rebels operated. Now, even major population centers are without power, phone and internet service.

Nonetheless, the enormity of the disaster is slowly coming into view. Early on, the junta took the rare step of appealing for foreign aid, which the military didn't do during several earlier disasters. Specialist teams have already arrived from Thailand, China, India, Russia and elsewhere, bringing everything from tents and medical kits to drones and rescue dogs trained to sniff out survivors.

The U.S. has promised assistance, starting with up to $2 million in donations to local aid groups, which was announced by the embassy there on Sunday.

International aid groups, including the U.N., are bracing for a monthslong response. Michael Dunford, Myanmar country director for the U.N.'s World Food Program, told the Journal that some $15 million to $20 million may be needed every month through June to provide food, shelter, health and sanitation services for the millions of people in need, according to an initial assessment.

It comes at a time when major donor countries, including the U.S. and U.K., have sharply scaled back support for foreign aid.

"I see, basically, unparalleled stress on vulnerable people," said Lauren Ellery, deputy director of Myanmar programs at the International Rescue Committee in Bangkok.

For now, rescue teams largely made up of volunteers in flip-flops and sarongs are pressing on to find survivors. They have withstood blazing tropical heat, unearthing neighbors with their bare hands when they didn't have heavy machinery.

In Amarapura, an area of Mandalay where young monks from across the country come to study, one aid worker said the smell of decaying bodies was hanging in the air.

Residents who ran outside their homes during the earthquakes are now afraid to go back in, sleeping on blankets and thin bamboo mats while they wait for help to arrive.

Relief has been slowed by shortages of everything from fuel to water, and roads so mangled that aid workers say drive times to the capital of Naypyitaw from Myanmar's main city of Yangon can now take as many as 10 hours, compared with about five before.

For Thar Nge, the first responder in Kyaukse, the future is hard to fathom. He is still haunted by what he saw the past few days.

"I can't get it out of my mind," he said.

Write to Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 31, 2025 09:45 ET (13:45 GMT)

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