Chit Suu Win Htein is terrified about her father’s health after the Myanmar earthquake.
He’s being held in solitary confinement in Mandalay’s Obo prison, which human rights groups say was struck by the quake.
“We have pleaded to see him,” said Chit Suu Win Htein, from her home in Australia.
Chit Suu Win Htein fled Myanmar after her father Win Htein, a close aide of ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was imprisoned when the military took power in 2021.
“They don’t allow visits by our family members or friends there,” she said.
“Officials say the prison wasn’t hit by the quake, that there’s nothing wrong, but how can that be when in the same city there is destruction everywhere?“
Mandalay, located in central Myanmar and the country’s second-biggest city, was hit hard by last Friday’s earthquake.
The Myanmar Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has reported at least four inmates died and 17 were injured inside the city’s Obo prison.
Win Htein sits with Myanmar’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. (AFP)
The ABC attempted to contact the military for comment.
Independent verification remains difficult as international media is largely barred from the country.
For now, Chit Suu Win Htein clings to letters her father sent before the quake.
“Crises keep hitting the country again and again. It is truly shocking,” she told the ABC.
Childhood hero killed in earthquake
Chit Htein’s story is just one of many among Myanmar’s diaspora in Australia, where students and families have been left reeling from the disaster.
The last time Shin Bhone Thant spoke to her childhood teacher in Myanmar, they were joking about old times.
Just days later, she received devastating news — her beloved mentor, along with her family, had been killed when their building collapsed in Pyu, a small city south of Mandalay.
“My teacher was my hero, and she’s gone. She was like my big sister,” Shin Bhone Thant said.
“I was in denial.”
The number of people killed by the magnitude-7.7 earthquake has risen to more than 3,000, with thousands more injured, according to state-run media.
The news about Shin Bhone Thant’s teacher initially came through a text in her family’s group chat. At first, she didn’t believe it.
Myanmar student Shin Bhone Thant stands next to her favourite pagoda in her home town. It was destroyed in the earthquake. (Supplied: Shin Bhone Thant)
Then came the photos — their bodies unrecognisable, covered in dust and blood.
“Her face didn’t look like her anymore. I told myself it wasn’t her. But then the news reports started coming in, and I had to believe it.”
In the immediate aftermath, Shin Bhone Thant scrambled to reach her own family from her student dormitory in Macquarie Park.
But in a country already strangled by the military regime’s tight grip on internet access, the earthquake’s destruction only made it worse.
Calls wouldn’t connect. Messages wouldn’t go through.
“I was shaking. I felt so hopeless. What if something happened and I couldn’t reach them?”
Shin Bhone Thant’s favourite pagoda in Pyu after the quake. (Supplied: Shin Bhont Thant)
It took hours before she finally got through to her uncle, who confirmed that her parents had fled their home but were safe.
Still, the uncertainty gnawed at her.
“Even now, I can’t call them whenever I want. The internet is too unstable. It’s so frustrating.”
A community in panic
Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured from the earthquake. (Reuters)
For Rhi Rhi, a recently graduated Myanmar student in Canberra, the initial shock gave way to dread when she realised the full extent of the destruction.
“At first, I thought it was in Thailand, where my sister lives. But then I saw the reports coming in from Myanmar, and I felt sick,” she said.
She felt relieved when she finally got through to her parents. But then the messages stopped.
Electricity and internet services have been cut in large parts of the country by the ruling junta.
“We couldn’t reach anyone. We just had to wait,”
she said.
When she eventually saw a photo of her childhood home in Amarapura, it was gone.
“I didn’t even want to talk to my parents about it. I didn’t want to remind them that they lost everything.”
The human cost was even higher — one of her old friends hadn’t made it out alive.
“That’s when I knew,” she said. “It wasn’t just buildings. It was people like my childhood best friend, who lived next door.”
Amarapura in central Myanmar has experienced widespread damage. (Reuters: Stringer)
A city in ruins
For Hnin Lwin, another Myanmar student in Canberra, the disaster was terrifyingly close.
Her sister had been in Amarapura, just a few kilometres from the epicentre.
“She was out shopping at Ocean Supermarket. The moment she felt the shaking, she ran,” Hnin Lwin said.
“She jumped on a motorbike with her boyfriend and raced home. But when she got there, the house was crushed.”
People queue for food and relief supplies in Amarapura. (Reuters: Stringer)
With nowhere else to go, her sister slept on the streets.
“No mattress, no tent, she just has a blanket,” Hnin said.
“And then the aftershocks came, knocking down whatever was left standing.”
Even worse, the military government’s control over aid has made relief in some parts nearly impossible.
“People are starving, injured and homeless, and yet they have to go through military checkpoints just to receive help,”
she said.
“Even donations from other cities are being blocked. The military checkpoints slow everything down and they ask: ‘Where are you going? Who are you visiting? Can I check your car?'”
With no outside aid in many of the earthquake-hit areas, survivors rely on each other.
Hnin Lwin said there was one small thing that made her a little relieved.
“My sister told me, ‘We’re cooking in a giant pot on the street with our neighbours. It’s like a festival, except we lost everything.'”
Mobilising for help
For Myanmar’s diaspora in Australia, grief is turning into action.
Students and community members are rallying to send aid back home, determined to bypass government restrictions and get help directly to those in need.
“I don’t want to just sit here feeling helpless,” said Sandi Auung Moe, president of The Australian National University’s Myanmar Students’ Association.
Students like Sandi Auung Moe are raising money and awareness of people affected in Myanmar. (Supplied: Sandi Auung Moe)
“We’re raising funds. We’re making sure money gets into the right hands.”
She’s working with a network of volunteers — many of whom were already running educational programs for underprivileged youth in Myanmar.
Now, those same networks are being used to distribute aid.
“We just try to figure out which areas need the most help,” she said.
People-to-people donations are keeping many alive in areas south of Mandalay. (Supplied: Aung Myo)
But the obstacles are a challenge.
With internet blackouts, banking restrictions and military crackdowns, even getting money into Myanmar has become a challenge.
“We use underground financial networks to send funds. It’s the only way,” recent graduate Sandi Auung Moe explained.
For now, the Myanmar community in Australia is rallying to do whatever it can, while many wait anxiously for the next message from home.
Hnin Lwin hasn’t heard from her sister in days.
“I told her, ‘survive well, you can’t die, you can’t leave me alone as the last living family member’.”
