Helping Earthquake Survivors in Myanmar

Myanmar Response
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Samaritan’s Purse provided desperately needed medical care, water, and shelter in Jesus’ Name.

Latest Updates

  • This response is now complete. To help Myanmar’s earthquake victims, Samaritan’s Purse set up in the capital of Naypyidaw a 60-bed Emergency Field Hospital. Our doctors and nurses treated over 5,800 patients and performed over 300 surgeries.
  • Six filtration units were delivered and produced more than 59,000 gallons of fresh water for earthquake victims.
  • A total of 5,000 kits containing temporary shelter material and other necessities were distributed to families in Myanmar, including internally displaced people.

Samaritan’s Purse deployed our Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) immediately after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, killing more than 3,500 people and injuring thousands of others.

Our DC-8 aircraft and a 747 cargo plane delivered over 100 tons of relief supplies, including water filtration units, emergency shelter material, and an Emergency Field Hospital. This multi-tent medical facility housed an emergency room, 60 patient beds, a pharmacy, laboratory, and two operating rooms to assist the local healthcare system in the capital of Naypyidaw. We also had a third operating room set up in a converted shipping container. Local treatment centers were overrun with earthquake-related cases. Our doctors and nurses performed surgeries on broken bones and other urgent orthopedic cases.

Some of the Emergency Field Hospital patients received care for conditions that predated the earthquake. One child named Myat* had a pot of boiling water spill on him when he was a year and a half old. This accident burned his right hand so badly that the skin on his fingers fused together, prohibiting him from moving them. Myat’s family waited years to find a hospital that could help him regain use of his hand. “It’s been a long wait,” Myat said. “But today, under this bandage, my thumb is moving.”

“We wanted every patient to know that God loves them and they are not alone. Please pray for everyone affected.”

-Franklin Graham, President, Samaritan’s Purse

Our disaster response specialists also installed a filtration system at a Buddhist temple in a rural area that previously had to boil their inadequate supply of water. They trained members of the monastic community on how to maintain the system and prayed for them before they left. A DART member said, “After I prayed in Jesus’ Name, the deputy abbot was filled with gratitude and kept saying, ‘Thank you, thank you.’”


*Name changed for security

Photos

The filtration system Samaritan’s Purse installed at a rural Buddhist monastery in Jesus’ Name is providing much-needed relief Families of patients fill bottles with refreshing clean water at the Samaritan’s Purse water point set up at the local hospital. Samaritan’s Purse has distributed hundreds of non-food item kits to families in Myanmar. Dr. Nottebrock who specializes in emergency and trauma care consults with a colleague at the bedside of a patient. A Samaritan’s Purse medical staff member tenderly cares for one of the earthquake patients at the Emergency Field Hospital. A Samaritan’s Purse doctor checks the vision of an earthquake survivor. Our team starts each day in Myanmar in prayer. Components of the Emergency Field Hospital were loaded onto our DC-8 aircraft in Calgary to be sent to Myanmar. A Samaritan’s Purse staffer checks the vitals of a recent amputation patient named U Bo Lay. The earthquake sadly claimed his leg after a tall pillar fell on it. One of our first patients, Su Su Hlaing, is a mother of two who lost her arm when her apartment building crumbled on top of her. She is now recovering well after surgery. Our doctors began operating on patients in a temporary facility even before the Emergency Field Hospital was assembled. Our DC-8 combi-aircraft brought first planeload of personnel and supplies to Myanmar. A Samaritan’s Purse medical professional looks for a vein in Su Su Hlaing, a recent amputation patient. The Disaster Assistance Response Team works to set up the Emergency Field Hospital.

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