The US has been unable to meaningfully respond to the Myanmar earthquake due to recent foreign aid cuts, according to three former senior US officials. One former US Agency for International Development (USAID) mission director for Myanmar told the BBC that "America has been on the sidelines" after the disaster.

Myanmar faces devastation from earthquake aftermath amid political turmoil, financial aid cuts, and humanitarian crisis, requiring international assistance.

Hours after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated Myanmar on Friday, sending dangerous tremors across Southeast Asia, the American officials charged with responding to the disaster received their termination letters from Washington.

A major rebel alliance in Myanmar on Tuesday declared a unilateral ceasefire in its conflict with the ruling military to support an international humanitarian response to last week's devastating earthquake.

For most of the day, somberness clouds a makeshift shelter for grief-stricken relatives of dozens of workers still missing at the site of a building collapse in Bangkok.

But Myanmar took the full force — and is far less well equipped to deal with the aftermath. The state’s capacity has been further eroded since the military toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.

The ruling junta has vowed to continue military operations that include airstrikes against rebel groups, even as aid organizations struggle to reach devastated areas.

The death toll from the quake and a series of aftershocks has climbed past 2,700, with 4,521 injured and hundreds still missing, according to Myanmar's military chief. "We still have hope," one man told the BBC as he waits to find out what happened to his missing sisters,

Signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed at least 2,