Global News Podcast - Myanmar earthquake deaths surpass 1600

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

The search for survivors continues in Myanmar as the number of deaths rises to more than 1600. The UN pleads for the Burmese military to stop attacking rebels. Also: Mexico tackles its country's obesity problem.

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and in the early hours of Sunday the 30th of March these are our main from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and in the early hours of Sunday 30 March these are our main stories. In Myanmar the search for earthquake survivors continued with hundreds trapped under the rubble. While the UN pleads for the Burmese military to halt attacks on rebels in affected areas. In Turkey hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters gathered in Istanbul to support the city's jailed mayor. Also, in this podcast, we take a look at the incel culture and Mexico tackles its country's obesity problem.

The schools are banned from including junk food in fizzy drinks and sugary drinks, even juices in the school environment. We start with the earthquake in Myanmar, where the military government there has confirmed more than 1,600 people have died. That figure is expected to rise. Buildings and bridges have been brought down across large waves of the country with reports of widespread destruction in Myanmar's second city, Mandalay. Aid has arrived from China and India,

but the United Nations is warning of a severe shortage of medical supplies. Our correspondent Nick Beek has been following developments from Bangkok. The ruins of Mandalay. The Sky Villa condominium was apartments and a wedding venue, a 12 story building reduced to six stories in seconds. And more than 90 people are still feared to be trapped here. Ye Ong says he felt huge relief when he was told his wife had been found conscious in the rubble. But rescuing her is taking time, he explains.

I am losing the hope I had. Some have been using their bare hands, and more than 24 hours after the quake, rescuers are freeing some survivors, young and old. But these minor miracles are few and far between and have punctuated an otherwise grim day of recovering bodies amid the destruction. I feel so sad to see this. All temples and pagodas in my village collapsed. We lost everything. Myanmar state TV has been showing damage to the presidential palace in the capital, Napadaw. But the military junta of Minon Lai, which seized power four years ago, continues to

restrict Internet access, meaning it's hard to get a clear sense of the scale of the devastation. Russia, as China, countries that have propped up the regime, have been sending specialist support. In a highly unusual move for the insular Burmese military, it says it will accept aid from everyone. But there are fears it will only direct help to areas under its control. control. Back at the Sky Villa condominium, 30-year-old Pule Kain pulled out of the rubble, alive, and reunited with her husband, who never gave up hope. Nick Beek. There have also been reports that the Burmese military has continued to carry out airstrikes in areas controlled by ethnic rebels in the Sagong region in the epicentre of the quake. The UN special rapporteur on

Myanmar Tom Andrews pleaded for it to stop. First of all I'm calling upon the junta to just stop, stop any of its military operations. This is completely outrageous and unacceptable. Many countries that are coming forward, China, ASEAN in the region, the European Union has stepped forward, Japan, Korea, that's the good news. But obviously, if you've got bombs being dropped from the sky while you're trying to rescue people, it's just nothing short of just incredible. But President Trump has said he wants to help and yes, of course USAID was dismantled in Myanmar

I think you know really recently How much of a problem is that? It's a huge problem. I mean and I've been traveling on the border I've been talking to people physicians nurses Medical operations that have had to shut down and it's not just the fact that they've had significant losses of funding from USAID, but it's just the way it's being done. It's just chaotic. They hear one day that things are being shut down.

The next day that they hear there's going to be, well, you can continue the most urgent operations. 48 hours later, they get another call saying, no, no, all of those have been stopped. Right smack dab in the middle of that, of course, is this earthquake. And so it's a catastrophe on top of a disaster. And remember, you've got half the country in poverty in the country.

You've got 20 million people, more than a third of the country, in need of humanitarian aid before the earthquake. 3 and 1 half million people internally displaced before the earthquake. And and a half million people internally displaced before the earthquake. And the conditions that they're living in are spotty at best. So you've got a huge problem even before the earthquake. Now you've got an incredible disaster. The UN's Tom Andrews. Well, for more on those relief efforts, I spoke to the former BBC Asia editor, Rebecca Henschke.

Since the Myanmar military staged a coup, it's sort of been plunged into international isolation. But there's been three countries that have kept a fairly close relationship with the military regime. That's India, China and Russia. And we are seeing those countries sending in aid that is starting to arrive. They're also sending rescue teams that have had experience, particularly from China, with earthquakes. Although this is slow, rescue workers talk about a golden period after an earthquake where you need to reach people that are trapped under the rubble if you're going to be pulling out people alive. And those hours are quickly passing by. So what we are hearing on the ground from rescue workers is the same that we've been

hearing from the beginning is that they're still there digging people out with their hands and they're not getting that heavy equipment that they need to try and move big pieces of rubble to really rescue people. And we're getting more reports now of a whole monastery that's collapsed with a lot of monks who are taking a key exam under the rubble. More and more reports of just the amount of people that could be trapped at this point. And a desperate situation. And of course then there are reports of the generals, the junta, the army bombing people in the rebel-held areas even despite the earthquake.

That's right. I mean the United Nations has called this outrageous, an incredible situation to have bombs dropping when you're trying to rescue people after such a devastating earthquake. But the Ministry of Defence of the National Unity Government or the NUG that basically the opposition group is made up of the elected leaders that were ousted by the coup has just announced that their forces will implement a two-week pause in the fighting. So their forces are the People's Defence Forces, they're a network of civilian militia groups and they're saying this pause will be in earthquake affected areas starting March the 30th and it will take place except for defensive actions. And they say that they're doing that in order for those militia groups

to concentrate on the relief and rescue work. And what have you heard from the rebel held areas? So that's also a key issue here is, I mean, the National Unity Government, which is the opposition government, they're in exile. So they are saying that they're trying to coordinate relief, they're trying to get funds, but on the ground, it's a real patchwork of resistance groups, they're all united with one goal of overthrowing the military, but it's not one united coordinated force. And so I think that's what we're seeing here. They're not able to really step up and be effective across the country. It's more a very grassroots level. They're getting their forces to help, you know, pull people from the rubble. But we're not seeing that they're able to fill the gap that the military is leaving. Rebecca Henschke, let's cross the border now into neighbouring Thailand where the focus

is on an unfinished high-rise building that collapsed in the capital Bangkok as a result of Friday's earthquake. Rescuers are working around the clock as families of more than 80 people who are missing continue to wait for news. Our correspondent Shima Khalil is in Bangkok and gave us this update. The area around the collapsed building is a hive of activity, with heavy machinery carefully picking through the rubble. Robots and specially trained dogs have been brought in to help. Dozens of construction workers remain missing. Some family members have been waiting for hours hoping for news about their loved ones. Vilaipon Picolton's 17-year-old niece was working at the skyscraper when it collapsed.

She hasn't heard anything about her since. I hope that will be a miracle. But deep down, I know that it's very unlikely. My hope is just that they find her so that we can bring her home. What I fear the most is that they will not find her body at all. Rescuers say they've detected signs of life under the rubble.

But getting closer remains difficult. Large pieces of debris are still dangerously unstable, making the rescue work painfully slow. Shyma Khalil in Bangkok. Hundreds of thousands of people have joined a protest rally in the Asian side of Istanbul against the jailing of the city's mayor,rem Imamoglu. Aerial footage showed a sea of demonstrators waving Turkish flags and chanting pro-democracy slogans. It was organised by Özgür Ozil, leader of the main opposition party, the CHP.

This was his defiant message for the crowd. Erdogan has been caught red-handed and the young people of this country have shown everyone and all of Turkey that they will not bow to fear. They will not kneel to oppression. They will not remain silent. Protests have been going on for ten days now ever since Mr. Imomolu's arrest, and they've been met with a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups. Our senior international correspondent, Orla Gherin, is in Istanbul for us. It was certainly a massive demonstration and you got that sense when you arrived

because it took us a very long time to enter the plaza where the rally was being held because there were simply so many people trying to get through the entrances and worth pointing out I saw something today I have not seen before at a demonstration there was a long line of what appeared to us to be close-circuit TV cameras. And these were trained on every entrance. So it seemed to us as if the faces of all of those who were coming through to attend the protest were actually being recorded by the authorities, presumably for use in the future to identify people who've been at the demonstrations. The demands were very consistent, the same kind of message we heard earlier

during the week on Monday and Tuesday at the large night-time demonstrations. People were calling for the freeing of the mayor, saying they would keep protesting as long as it would take to get him out of jail. Now that could mean a very long fight, the reality is he could be in prison for several years. People were demanding freedom of expression, people were demanding protection for human rights. One young man said to us, look, I've come to try to defend democracy here before it's just too late. You mentioned there were CCTV cameras there.

And as we know, the Turkish Authority have already been cracking down on protesters and journalists in recent days. Can you give us an update on that? Well there's certainly a great deal of fear and we heard that from demonstrators today. Several people said they were afraid of being arrested. Some told us they had friends who had been picked up in these dawn raids that have been going on over the last 10 days. The official figure from the Interior Ministry now is that 1,900 people have been detained just in the past 10 days. The official figure from the Interior Ministry now is that 1900 people have been detained

just in the past 10 days. We know that among those there are seven journalists and we've had the first indictment handed down by public prosecutors here against some of those who were arrested and all of these people arrested at the protests and the prosecutor is asking for jail terms of between six months and three years. Now press freedom groups and media organizations here are pointing out that among the journalists arrested were people who were simply doing their job. There were photographers who were taking photographs that have been seen around the world and become famous around the world and human rights organizations are saying that the legitimate right to freedom of expression

to gather peacefully to protest against the government's policies there is a major attempt here now they say to stifle those rights and those freedoms and it didn't begin ten days ago with the arrest of Ekrem Emimoglu which has certainly been a pattern that we've observed here over many years now. Orla Gherin in Istanbul. One in eight people in the world are living with obesity, that's according to the World Health Organization. Mexico has one of the world's biggest obesity epidemics and the condition is

becoming increasingly common among adults and children. It's an issue that the Mexican president, Claudia Scheinbaum, has taken on. And from now on, junk food will no longer be available in schools. Dr. Simon Baquera is the president of World Obesity Federation and he's also Mexican. He explained to the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones why obesity is such a problem there. It's the most important public health problem currently in Mexico. It started in the 90s and it has been growing very fast.

Right now 80% of the mortality in Mexico is due to non-communicable chronic diseases and the main risk factor is obesity and it is very associated to the shifting the food system that we have experienced since the free trade agreement started at the end of the 80s. Gosh, that's interesting. The free trade agreement with the United States and Canada and that changed what Mexicans eat. Yes, it definitely changed the diet of the Mexicans, which was basically very rich in

basic products like beans, corn, vegetables and fruits. And during a period of maybe 10 years, consumption of fizzy drinks increased more than 40% in the country. For example, the consumption of greens is very low right now. And the consumption of junk food, ultra processed food, is very high. In one hand, these products, in order to be cheap and accessible, need to be a very low quality.

So these are products that are very rich in sugar, fat, and salt, which are the cheap ingredients. And then they are they come with a very heavy marketing campaign that has target usually children and is very aggressive and it's in basically in all the spaces in in schools, in TV, in social media. Yeah and we're talking about this because you've got these new rules coming in about the availability of this kind of junk food in schools. So tell us about that initiative and whether you think it'll make a difference. Yes we're very

excited because we tried to implement this policy for more than 13 years. However it was in form of guidelines and recommendations from schools and those were not really enforced. But this time it was included in the general law for education in Mexico. So now the schools are banned from including junk food in fizzy drinks and sugary drinks, even juices in the school environment. Dr. Simón Barquera, president of the World Obesity Federation. Still to come, why the size of the spotsary from the BBC World Service.

Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia group, has been battered by its war with Israel. Now even some supporters are questioning its purpose. So is this a turning point? Join me, Hugo Bashega, as I travel to the heartland of the movement to find out. Listen now by searching for the Documentary wherever the movement to find out. Ukraine has accused Russia of damaging a state-owned gas facility during recent drone strikes, breaking the agreed ceasefire on energy infrastructure negotiated in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. There are fears that the peace deal will not hold.

The BBC's Abdul Jalal Abdul Rasulov has visited a secret factory in Ukraine that makes the long-range drones they use to strike oil refineries and fuel depots deep inside Russia. He sent us this report. At a secret location, Ukrainian engineers work on the development of new long-range drones. They drill, glue and assemble parts of a model called Raybird. This drone can cover a distance of more than thousand kilometers and stay in the air for up to 28 hours. So it can easily reach cities like Moscow. Raybird is effectively a spy aircraft. Roman Knizhenko, the head of Skyton, the

company that develops these drones. The idea was to create the system that can control and monitor big areas or extended areas like borders of the country and so on. It's one of the most advanced systems in the world right now in terms of reconnaissance. It's not too many aircrafts able to work so deep on the enemy territory." Raybird identifies targets and directs fire. Among the targets are Russia's oil refineries and fuel depots. It's estimated that this year alone, Kiev has carried out more than 30 attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure using long-range drones and possibly missiles.

As a result, Russia's oil refinery capacity has dropped by 10%. But now these strikes must end. Both Moscow and Kiev have committed to stop targeting each other's energy infrastructure under a US-brokered deal. If it holds, the ceasefire will bring some relief for Ukraine. for Ukraine. Russia has been relentlessly targeting its power plants and gas infrastructure across the country, leaving thousands of people without electricity and heating. But Ukrainian drone makers fear that the ceasefire agreement would fail. Oleksii, the test pilot. Our enemy just wants to have a break, gather its strength and attack again.

Of course, the ceasefire is good, but we need to remember that they invaded us. The Raybird is now prepared for a test flight. The aircraft, which looks like a mini plane with wings, is placed on a launch pad, stretched like an arrow on a crossbow, and then shot into the air. The engineers believe that they need to continue their work and the development of new weapons. They say that the ceasefire will hold only if Ukraine remains strong. Abdujalil Abdu-Rasulof. The office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it's received a proposal for a resumption of the ceasefire in Gaza

from mediators between Israel and Hamas and submitted its own counter-proposal. It comes as Israeli forces have continued airstrikes across Gaza. Sebastian Asher reports from Jerusalem. There's been growing speculation that Israel and Hamas might agree a new, limited ceasefire during the Muslim holiday of Eid, which begins tomorrow. Mr Netanyahu's office says he's held consultations on a proposal from mediators, which is said to involve a 50-day truce and the release of five more hostages.

Hamas is said to have agreed to the plan. Israel has now submitted a counteroffer. It comes as Israeli forces have continued airstrikes across Gaza and a ground operation in Rafah aimed, the IDF says, at expanding its security zone in the south of the territory. As big protests have again been taking place in Israel, demanding that the government do all it can to secure the release of the remaining hostages, Hamas has posted a second video of the hostage Elkanah Bobot, which shows him in clear distress. Sebastian Ascher.

Denmark has been responding to the criticism directed at it by the United States Vice President J.D. Vance on his visit to Greenland on Friday. Mr Vance said Denmark, which has had territorial control over the island for 300 years, had under-invested in its security. And this was the reason why President Trump needed Greenland for American and international security. The Danish Prime Minister, Mette Friedrichsen, will visit Greenland next week. She has said the United States needs to follow international rules and that it is NATO and the Arctic allies that have security control over the area.

The Foreign Minister, Lars Loke Rasmussen, has also posted a response on X. I have a message for our American friends and all others who are listening. Much is being said these days. Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course we are open to criticism. But let me be completely honest. We do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to your close allies and I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies. The Danish foreign minister Lars Loko Rasmussen.

France's trade ministry has condemned the sending of letters from the American embassy in Paris to several French firms as unacceptable. The letters obliged companies with US government contracts to comply with a presidential order banning diversity programmes. Danny Aberhard reports. Among a flurry of executive orders signed by President Trump when he began his second term was one targeting affirmative action programmes. He sees them as part of a liberal or woke agenda,

arguing they undermine appointments based on merit. It's not clear how many French companies have received the letter. It's raising concerns about extraterritorial overreach. A French official quoted by the Reuters news agency said France will remind the US that practices differ in the two countries. Danny Eberhard. There's been a lot of talk about the television show Adolescence, the top streaming show on Netflix in 75 countries. In it we learn a 13 year old boy murders a schoolgirl after being influenced by incel ideas. Dublin researcher Maeve Park has been following a group of men aged 19 to mid

30s subscribing to that incel ideology for over a year. They're from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. She's just published her findings in a book called Black Pilled. The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones spoke to her, first asking her about the term Black Pilled and incel. The term Black Pilled is the name of the ideology we're seeing subscribe to incels. It's a nihilistic worldview with misogyny as well. And the term incel literally means involuntary celibate. However, the term is used within this group of people, mostly congregating online, who subscribed to the beliefs of the black pill so they can believe in the nihilistic version of life or the misogynistic wrapped into one kind of ideological worldview.

Very bleak, very much about men being suppressed and very much about if you're not attractive enough you don't really have a lot of hope in life. So kind of a fatalistic, catastrophic, nihilistic worldview with misogyny very much attached into it as well. And the basic idea is they've never found a girlfriend and they blame the world for that. Yes, so they believe that because they haven't had any romantic partners or even gone on dates or had any success in that kind of arena, that they feel that there's something either

very much wrong with them or wrong with society and they're kind of taking that out in a very much a resentment build ideology. We have seen violence coming from this kind of ideology in this worldview and we've seen some mass shootings and mass homicide coming from it. One of the earliest mass shootings was in the 2014, the Isla Vista in California. It was carried out by a young man called Elliot Roger. He was 21 at the time and he shot and killed six people including himself. We've seen sexual harassment, stalking, abuse, abuse online and then some of the violence that we're seeing is also suicide as well. Is this a western phenomenon? It's not a Western phenomenon, but I was going, I was researching the anglosphere in cell communities, which was an interesting finding to see that there were people who came from

non English speaking countries taking part in the English speaking and cell communities. However, we have discovered that there are French communities, Indian communities, South Korea, and it spans the world. And now we're seeing even some African communities coming up. So do you think this is one of those things that's happening because of the internet? People like this have always existed, but they've been isolated and now they're not. They're part of a group.

I would say yes, that is definitely true and that is why we're seeing kind of a community build around people who couldn't find community. I often say that the incels online are the most exclusive club. They're very clear about who is incel, who is not incel, and who would fit in their criteria. However, there are all a bunch of people who did not find community outside of these groups and incels, not all of them would be misogynistic, not all of them would be violent, many of them are nihilistic and would not take their vengeance or resentment out on others. You've used the term nihilistic quite a lot. When you interview one of these young men, how does that manifest itself, that nihilism?

Very much a feeling that nothing will ever work out for me, that there is no hope for me, that I may as well drop out of society. meaning if you're young, dropping out of university, dropping out of school, not attempting to find a job, not leaving your house, not going outside or having any conversations with anyone. And feeling like that is your kind of fate at a very young age, which is I've met many people in their mid-30s who have gone through that in their early 20s and are now kind of seeing the impact of that where they have no social circle, they have no financial, they have no ability to get a job, a salary. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy anyways. Are there people who are incels who get out of it?

Well yeah well that's always the hope and I speak about it in the book. So I was interviewing them for over a year and And during that time, a couple of them found ways out of the ideology or out of their situation. One of the best success stories was a man in his later twenties returning to university after initially dropping out. And that has kind of given him a new lease in life, a new goal, a new feeling of self-esteem. Other times some incels can just leave because they find potentially a partner or friendships, but we have to be very careful that the ideology doesn't go away. You don't become less misogynistic or less nihilistic just because you have a date or had a short-term relationship or a girlfriend. It's a journey and that takes

a lot of work and it's very difficult to break free from an ideology as well. Maeve Park, author of the book Black Pilled. Zoologists have long been fascinated by giraffe spots. These unique markings help the animals regulate their body temperature as well as evade predators. Now researchers think the size and shape of a giraffe spot could determine their chances of survival during extreme weather. As Shantel Huttall reports. A giraffe's spots are much like human fingerprints. They appear similar but no two giraffes have exactly the same pattern. Previous studies have indicated that newborn giraffes with

larger and more irregular shaped spots are more likely to survive their first few months of life as they can camouflage more easily. But research published in the New Scientist magazine suggests these individual markings can affect how the animals handle temperature too. Teams from the University of Zurich and the University of Bristol studied more than 800 wild Maasai giraffes in Tanzania over an eight-year period. They found that calves and adult males with larger spots were more likely to survive when temperatures were unusually low. Each patch of a giraffe's coat contains a network of blood

vessels which helps them conserve or release heat depending on their environment. The researchers think this could explain why bigger spots led to better survival in colder temperatures. By contrast, in very hot weather, they found male giraffes and calves with smaller spots had improved survival chances. Researchers say excess heat absorbed from sunlight might restrict a giraffe's ability to regulate its temperature, which could expose animals with larger spots to hypothermia. When it came to adult females, though, spot patterns had little effect on survival rates. The team found that they were more likely to stay in groups with their calves and not roam around as much as male giraffes, making them less

exposed to extreme weather. Chantal Hartle. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global news pod. This edition was mixed by Kai Perry and the producer was Marion Straughan. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Rachel Wright. Until next time, goodbye. Israel. Now even some supporters are questioning its purpose. So is this a turning point? Join me, Hugo Bachega, as I travel to the heartland of the movement to find out. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.