As a team of experts in the United States is aimed at Myanmar to help in the recovery of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in Southeast Asia on Friday, international teams, including those of China and Russia, are filling the void in the absence of the United States.
The United States said on Monday that it would provide $ 2 million to help and that a small international development emergency response equipment has been deployed to evaluate the situation in Myanmar, but the authorities said they had not yet been able to enter the country from Monday morning.
Although the amount in initial aid is in line with what the United States has promised in the past, the general rhythm of the response has been slower. Following the 2023 earthquake in Morrrocco, for example, a Usaid disaster assistance response equipment was deployed only a few hours later, although Morrucco did not ask for darts.
That same year that Libya suffered catastrophic floods, the darts deployed the same day. And when an important earthquake hit Turkey and Syria that same year, Dart teams also launched only a few hours after the disaster. In both cases, the darts took a few days to get to the ground.
The military personnel of the United States Indo-Pacific Command continues to work together with the Thai Army and the first to respond near the building of the State Audit Office collapsed in Bangkok, Thailand, which fell after an earthquake of magnitude of 7.7, on March 28, 2025.
EE. UU. Indo-Pacific
The United States response occurs in the midst of President Donald Trump’s efforts to redo the federal government and dismantle the USAID, saying goodbye to thousands of employees, revoking funds for more than 80% of their programs and closing its headquarters, although those efforts are being challenged in multiple judicial cases.
On Friday, the State Department announced that the agency was officially closing and assuming “many of the functions of USAID and its continuous program.”
The State Department has retreated the evaluation that the cuts to USAID have limited the response of the earthquake, but the officials say that there have been at least a logistics impact caused by reorganization, instead of lack of funds.
“It would reject the notion that this is obviously the result of the USAID cuts and that type of financing,” said the spokesman for the State Department Tammy Bruce on Monday. “We are certainly in the region.”
Meanwhile, it was the Chinese teams that arrived 18 hours after the earthquake and more than 400 Chinese personnel are now in the field in the region. Beijing has sent supplies full of supplies, providing $ 14 million in help. China also has multiple teams in Thailand.
It is a propaganda victory for China, which shows that it can be a reliable partner when its neighbors are in crisis.
The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of China, Mao Ning, published on Monday in X photos and videos of Chinese workers in the field, rescuing the survivors and delivering supplies, saying: “China, a necessary friend.”
On the site where a 34 -story building collapsed on Sunday in Bangkok, a group of US military personnel was going from the search area throughout Monday. The American team is working with Israeli soldiers to receive survivors, sending drones to too dangerous areas for rescue workers to reach.
“We are learning a lot from Americans, and they are bringing many good teams,” said Choktong Isssarangkool, one of the volunteers in rescue and search teams that also acts as a translator for US teams.
The Thai are grateful for American assistance, something that this region has become accustomed to following a natural disaster: American help teams have always been among the first in the field to help.
State Department officials said that discussions about a more extensive response to the earthquake are ongoing, including the possibility of sending a Dart team, although it could be smaller than in the past efforts.
“Our disaster experts, including those based in Bangkok, Manila and Washington, DC, continue to monitor the situation with coordination with the homologues of the United States government in the region,” Bruce said.
She emphasized that the $ 2 million of initial support would be implemented through associated organizations that were already working in the impacted areas.
