By Our Reporter

The death toll in last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar has crossed 2,000, as reported by AP.

Two hundred Buddhist monks were crushed by a collapsing monastery. Fifty children were killed when a preschool classroom crumbled. Seven hundred Muslims struck while praying at mosques for Ramadan. The quake could exacerbate hunger and disease outbreaks in a country that was already one of the world’s most challenging places for humanitarian organisations to operate because of civil war, aid groups and the United Nations warned.

The 7.7 magnitude quake hit Friday, with the epicenter near Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay. It damaged the city’s airport, buckled roads and collapsed hundreds of buildings along a wide swath down the country’s center, AP reported

Relief efforts are further hampered by power outages, fuel shortages and spotty communications. A lack of heavy machinery has slowed search-and-rescue operations, forcing many to search for survivors by hand in daily temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.

Some 700 Muslim worshipers attending Friday prayers were killed when mosques collapsed, said Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network. He said some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed. Videos posted on The Irrawaddy online news site showed several mosques toppling.

The earthquake also rattled Thailand, however, the loss was minimal with a few deaths and destruction of structures.