India sends aid flight to quake-hit Myanmar

NEW DELHI: An Indian aid flight landed in Myanmar on Saturday, the foreign ministry in New Delhi said, a day after a powerful 7.7-magnitude caused widespread damage in its civil war-ravaged neighbour.

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid, indicating the severity of a calamity that has killed at least 694 people and injured 1,670 others.

Previous military regimes in the country have shunned foreign assistance even after major natural disasters.

Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said a C-130 military transport plane had been dispatched carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials.

“A search and rescue team and medical team is also accompanying this flight,” he added. “We will continue to monitor the developments and more aid will follow.”

Myanmar quake death toll nears 700 as international aid starts to arrive

Jaishankar’s ministry later shared photographs of the flight being unloaded after it landed in the commercial capital Yangon.

Friday’s quake struck destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with severe damage reported in the second-biggest city, Mandalay.

It was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in over a century, according to US geologists.

The tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away from the epicentre.