News

Early Recovery Cluster Webpage on MIMU

The Early Recovery (ER) Cluster was activated swiftly following the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on 28 March 2025.

Early Recovery is a strategic approach that integrates humanitarian response with long term recovery and development efforts. By applying development principles in crisis settings, it helps stabilize communities, restore essential services, and rebuild livelihoods. This ensures humanitarian action leads to sustainable recovery and greater resilience, enabling crisis affected populations to regain self reliance quickly.

Early Recovery coordination brings together humanitarian and development actors to deliver a coherent, principled emergency response, enhancing effectiveness through stronger predictability, accountability, and partnerships.

Cluster resources will be collected and featured on a newly launched Early Recovery Cluster webpage on the MIMU website.

Satellite-detected Damage in part of Monywa Township

The latest map from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) assess probable damage buildings focusing on a part of Monywa Township, where damage was detected using a WorldView-2 very high-resolution satellite image acquired on April 25, 2025.

UNOSAT identified 27 damaged structures and 170 potentially damaged.

This is a preliminary analysis and has not yet been validated in the field. Ground verification is encouraged, and feedback can be sent to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).

Guidance on Emergency Shelter and NFI Earthquake Response

The Northwest Shelter/NFI Technical Working Group (TWG) in consultation with cluster members has collaboratively developed a Guidance Note on Emergency Shelter and Non-Food Items (NFI) Assistance. This aims to provide recommendations from the Northwest Shelter/NFI/CCCM Cluster regarding the provision of emergency shelter and NFI support to populations affected by the earthquake.

It outlines various assistance modalities that can be adapted according to the evolving situation on the ground and the specific needs of the affected communities.

This is a living document and will be revised and updated as necessary in response to changing conditions and new information.

Download the document from MIMU website.

Explore the Shelter/NFI/CCCM Cluster web page on MIMU.

Untimely Rainfall Hindering Response / Recovery Efforts

With the monsoon season coming very soon, we have been seeing reports of rain and wind hampering response operations. At Inle Lake on 27 April, severe winds tore through Kyartaw Village near Nangpang, ripping off damaged roofs of earthquake affected homes and flattening makeshift shelters. Patheingyi Township in Mandalay Region includes seven villages on islands in the Irrawaddy River between Mandalay and Sagaing towns which reportedly faces flooding during the rainy season. The rain is also worsening road conditions, and travelling will be increasingly difficult.

An untimely rainfall warning has been issued until 4 May: rain or thundershowers are likely to be fairly widespread to widespread across the country with the likelihood of regional and isolated heavy falls.

Data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and other tools can be used to obtain short  and medium term weather forecasts.

Updates on Sagaing Earthquake

Today marks one month since the devastating earthquake struck Myanmar on 28 March 2025. Affected communities still face severe challenges and urgently need essential supplies and services, while sustainable early-recovery support is critical to help them rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Drawing on the latest reports from multiple agencies—while data collection and validation are still ongoing—below is a snapshot of the impact and response one month after the earthquake.

Sources: UNOCHA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, AHA Centre

Photo : UNDP Myanmar


Human Impact

  • 3,757 deaths, 5,107 injured, 116 missing (as of 22 Apr 2025, 18:00 MMT) – AHA Centre
  • Over 9 million people (including 2.7 million children) living in the 58 worst-affected townships – UNICEF
  • 17.2 million people in key affected areas, including 4.6 million women of reproductive age and 223,157 currently pregnant women – UNFPA
  • 2.1 million conflict-affected IDPs also impacted by the earthquake – UNHCR
  • 206,977 people currently displaced; 41,733 of them sheltering in 135 temporary sites – AHA Centre


Infrastructure Damage

  • 55,587 houses damaged (12,441 totally; 43,146 partially)
  • 38 railways, 95 bridges, 407 roads, and 198 locations / 81 bridges along the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway damaged
  • 5,452 office buildings, 2,565 schools, 5,319 religious buildings, 5,342 pagodas, and 304 hospitals/clinics affected – AHA Centre
  • 3.3 million tonnes of debris to be cleared – UNDP
  • 640+ health facilities damaged – UNFPA


Highlighted Needs and Responses

  • UNDP: Cash-for-work programmes for debris removal and infrastructure rehabilitation, generating immediate incomes for over 250,000 people. Temporary shelters provided, homes assessed and—where possible—repaired ahead of the rainy season, reaching nearly 50,000 households. Household Emergency Assistance Packages (HEAP) reached 500,000 people in urban and rural areas.
  • Food Security Cluster: Over 413,000 people reached with food assistance in Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw, Sagaing, and southern Shan.
  • Health: 36 partners delivering essential services across 22 affected townships; 7,300+ people treated at mobile clinics.
    • UNFPA: 18,367 People reached with essential SRH services,including life-saving maternal care and clean delivery kits, in severely affected regions of Mandalay and Sagaing
  • Logistics: Storage capacity remains a critical need, particularly in Mandalay and Yangon.
  • Nutrition: Nearly 500 children and 20 pregnant/lactating women screened for acute malnutrition.
  • Protection:
    • Needs assessments and monitoring covered ~80,000 people.
    • 70,000+ people joined community-based awareness sessions on protection and human-rights risks.
    • MHPSS support reached 325 people in Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw, Sagaing, and Yangon.
  • Child Protection & GBV:
    • 17,159 people (incl. 14,146 children and 7 persons with disabilities) reached with child-protection services.
    • UNFPA and around 49 partners are delivering MHPSS, legal aid, health services, counselling and referral services, dignity and essential item kits.
    • UNFPA: 18,259 People reached with integrated GBV/MHPSS support, including capacity building and provision of dignity kits and Women Essential Items kits
    • 3,000+ women and girls accessed GBV services; 10,000+ people attended GBV/MHPSS awareness sessions.
    • 7,036 dignity kits and 5,200 women’s essential-item kits distributed.
  • Shelter/NFI: Since the earthquakes, 116,800 people received emergency NFI assistance in 26 townships, and 13,400 received emergency-shelter support in 15 townships.
  • WASH: Many communities still rely on unsafe water sources due to damaged boreholes, broken pipe systems, or contaminated wells. Cluster partners have:
    • Reached 600,000+ people with water-purification tablets.
    • Provided ~241,000 people with water distribution, sanitation facilities, hygiene kits, and hygiene-promotion activities.
    • UNDP supplied clean drinking water to 500,000 people through purification kits, water kiosks, and well-cleaning—ensuring access for persons with disabilities.
MIMU HDP Nexus 5W Released

To support coordination of humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP)-focused activities across Myanmar, including ongoing response and recovery efforts, products from the latest round of MIMU HDP Nexus 5W (data recorded as of 28th February) have now been released.

198 agencies voluntarily contributed details on their activities via their designated agency focal points. Note that inputs are self-reported and not verified on the ground by MIMU. Reporting agencies include UN agencies, many INGOs, Red Cross and a growing number of local NGOs, with activities categorised into 22 sectors and 152 sub-sectors. Data is collected down to camp/village level, with most agencies reporting at least to village tract level.
 
Data Protection Measures:

  • Agencies can restrict data sharing for specific sensitive projects or areas; agency names will not appear in any HDP Nexus 5W products.
  • Dataset and agency names are no longer shared publicly.
  • Detailed Village Tract level maps no longer public

Available Resources (Explore on the MIMU website):

Interactive Dashboards: Explore data by area or sector without identifying agency names.

Maps: Township-level maps are publicly available (detailed village tract level maps available on request to contributing agencies).

HDP Nexus 5W Data Files with additional details are no longer publicly available but can be provided on request to participating agencies for inter-agency coordination purposes.

Conclusion of Copernicus EMS Activation

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) is one of six services provided by Copernicus, the Earth Observation component of the European Union’s space programme. The Rapid Mapping Service was activated approximately 3 hours after the earthquake and concluded yesterday after analysing 57 Areas of Interest (AOIs) and releasing 68 satellite images.

Based on this data, CEMS estimates that 17,843 buildings and 11.7 km of roads have been affected across these AOIs. Additionally, in AOI28 (Sinthay River), flooding due to a dam breach impacted a built-up area of 1.30 hectares, and 1.50 km of roads.

Review the situation report on the CEMS Activation page.

Download the maps for each AOI here.

 

More Maps on Earthquake Damage to Heritage and Cultural Sites

The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) has been assessing heritage and cultural sites through remote sensing analysis, given the location of epicentre near the historic cities Sagaing and Mandalay. 5 latest maps cover probable damage at the following sites:

  • Pyu Ancient Cities: Halin – No visible damage
  • Pyu Ancient Cities: Beikthano – No visible damage
  • Bagan: Component 6 – No visible damage
  • Mon Cities: Bago, Hanthawaddy – No visible damage
  • Paleik – 26 damaged cultural heritage locations / 14 possible damage

Please Note: This is a preliminary analysis based on satellite imagery and has not yet been validated in the field. UNOSAT welcomes ground feedback to refine the assessment.

Download the maps on MIMU website.

Food Security Analysis #2 (WFP)

This WFP analysis reviews previous food security and vulnerability data, overlaid with earthquake impact, to refine the design of the food security response. It answers key questions such as where, how many, and who are food insecure.
Where:

  • Regions with largest pre-earthquake food-insecure populations: Mandalay, East Bago, Sagaing.
  • Most affected townships: Sagaing and Shwebo (Sagaing region); Chanmyathazi, Aungmyaythazan, Amarapura, Yamethin, Pyawbwe (Mandalay); Taungoo and Yedashe (Bago).

How many:

  • 2.8 million food-insecure people (2024 data) live in earthquake-affected townships.

Who:

  • Higher rates of food insecurity among displaced populations, rural households, large households, and female-headed households.

Read more and download the report from MIMU website.

Debris Management: Guided by Satellites, Supported by and for Field Teams

Why debris matters – At least two and a half million tonnes of debris, roughly 125,000 truckloads, must be removed in Myanmar. These figures, coming from UNDP’s remote sensing analysis, underscore the urgent need for large scale debris removal and repairs and reconstruction of critical infrastructure and homes as part of the ongoing recovery efforts.

UNDP’s analysis integrated advanced satellite derived building damage classifications from UNOSAT and Copernicus with Microsoft’s building footprint data, supported by local data such as admin boundaries and population figures. This enables immediate targeting of priority areas for debris removal and recycling, guiding the deployment of national engineers to undertake rapid structural assessments of public service buildings, critical infrastructure, and affected homes—information that directly informs rehabilitation and reconstruction plans.

Read more to see how remote sensing analysis shows massive, immediate reconstruction is vital in Myanmar.

Explore the detailed analysis through ArcGIS Story Map.