1 week on, Burmese rescue workers in the midst of chaos
HI met one of its partners, an ambulance organisation that has been mobilised since the first hours after the earthquake in Mandalay. A week after the disaster, he tells us about it.
A volunteer of an ambulance organisation interviewed during the assessment of needs done by HI teams in Mandalay | © HI
Since 28 March 2025, I have been living in a spiral of distress and exhaustion. At 1pm on that day, the earth shook, devastating Mandalay. In a matter of seconds, the city was transformed into a field of ruins.
Calls for help rang out everywhere. In the rubble-strewn streets, bodies lay dead and others were trapped under collapsed buildings. I saw families in tears, lost children, injured people in a state of shock. My team and I hit the road immediately, our ambulances racing from one point to the next, relentlessly transporting survivors to Mandalay General Hospital. Each time we arrived, the doctors sorted out the patients: the most seriously injured first, the others had to wait... or fend for themselves.
After four journeys without a break, my body gave in. My hands were shaking and my thoughts were racing. I stopped, if only for a moment, to catch my breath. But how can we stop when so many lives are hanging on our actions? The next day, we resumed, tirelessly.
In the days that followed, we gave everything we had: supplying the town with 1,400-gallon water tankers, organising rescue operations, digging bodies out of the rubble. Over a hundred dead, dozens injured.
Our strength was waning, and mental suffering was eating away at us. Insomnia set in, as did nightmares. Some volunteers could no longer speak, frozen in a mute stupor. We needed help, and so did the rescue workers, and we needed psychological support. But there was no one. Not a single service to listen to us, to help us carry this burden.
Our clinic, which used to be open three days a week to treat chronic illnesses and minor emergencies, had closed. We are trying to reopen it, to restore a semblance of normality to our community. But there's so much we don't understand.
I think back to those moments when we were unable to save those waiting under the rubble, due to a lack of resources. Those looks of hope that were extinguished before our very eyes. The tragedy is immense, and we, who were there to save, are drowning.
We need help.
HI team was able to assess the needs of one of HI's partners, an ambulance service volunteers, who are going through a real trauma, something we unfortunately often experience with the rescue teams that deploy in the first days of a disaster. Many are haunted by the scenes they witnessed, gnawed by the guilt of not having been able to save more lives. Insomnia, compassionate fatigue, exhaustion spreading among them, first psychological aid is needed to avoid post-traumatic stress.LHI is about to support different other ambulance organizations like this one. HI will provide psychological support to the rescuers and their patients. The organisation will support them through the distribution of assistive devices, like wheelchair, crutches, strechers...
