Myanmar’s Earthquake Recovery Was Always Going to Fail Under Military Rule

The 28 March 2025 earthquake devastated Mandalay, Sagaing, and central Myanmar. But the deeper disaster was not only the quake itself; it was the political system that met the quake — a military junta that treats crisis as an opportunity for control. One year later, the record is clear: the junta did not mount an effective recovery. It mounted a political performance, while humanitarian need, displacement, insecurity, and economic fragility remained stubbornly unresolved.

Disaster under dictatorship

Natural disasters expose the quality of a state. In Myanmar, the earthquake exposed a regime that is unable or unwilling to separate civilian protection from war-making. HRW reported that within hours of the quake the military requested international assistance, but also kept up airstrikes, limited internet access, and maintained curfews and other restrictions that hindered rescue operations. That is the defining fact of the post-quake period: the junta presented itself as the national responder while behaving like a combatant that never paused its campaign.

Aid as leverage

The junta’s response was not only inadequate; it was instrumentalized. HRW said local junta authorities in Sagaing required volunteers and donated items to be authorized through military-linked channels, and foreign media were barred from reporting inside the country. Reuters later reported that attacks continued despite the supposed ceasefire, confirming that the truce was never a clean humanitarian break from conflict.

That matters because disaster response is supposed to be about rapid, impartial access. Under Myanmar’s junta, aid became something to be filtered, supervised, and politically rationed. This is not a side issue. It is the central mechanism by which authoritarian disaster management works: control the routes, control the narrative, control who gets seen as helping, and control who gets blamed for failure.

The junta’s recovery theater

The regime clearly understood that it needed to be seen doing something. It announced emergency measures, repeatedly extended ceasefires, and collected large sums in quake-related donations. The Irrawaddy reported that the junta said it had gathered almost 132 billion kyats plus $2 million for 51 apartment blocks, while Min Aung Hlaing claimed he had visited quake-hit areas 15 times and that his ceasefire had helped reconstruction.

But the optics collapse under scrutiny. The same report said many government employees in Naypyitaw were still living and working in tents, rubble remained around state buildings, and Mandalay residents were still struggling to clear debris from collapsed homes. In other words, the regime collected money and staged recovery symbolism faster than it restored real conditions for survival.

Why recovery stalled

A serious recovery required four things the junta could not provide: trust, access, coordination, and security. It had none of them in sufficient measure. HRW documented restrictions on internet access, media reporting, volunteer mobilization, and movement of donations. UN and Reuters reporting showed that attacks continued and that ceasefire declarations had limited practical effect.

The one-year humanitarian picture confirms the damage. WFP said recovery remains fragile, with one in six households in Sagaing and Mandalay facing moderate to severe food insecurity and half of families only marginally food secure. The ICRC said recovery continues amid conflict, not after it, and that many communities remain exposed to compounding risks. That is not the profile of a successful state-led recovery. It is the profile of a population still coping with a disaster that has never been politically resolved.

Mandalay was left waiting

For Mandalay, the junta’s failure was not abstract. Residents told The Irrawaddy that authorities were dragging their feet on inspections, repair approvals, and demolition decisions, while some families were forced to remain outdoors in punishing heat. Those delays are not bureaucratic footnotes. They are the difference between rebuilding and indefinite precarity.

Mandalay should have been the place where the state demonstrated competence. Instead, it became a case study in administrative paralysis. The longer a damaged house stays unrepaired, the longer a family remains vulnerable. The longer a building remains in limbo, the more the earthquake continues to shape daily life.

The war swallowed the quake

Perhaps the most damning indictment is that the quake did not interrupt the junta’s war. In some places, it intensified the insecurity around disaster zones. The Irrawaddy reported that more than 12,000 people fled junta offensives in a quake-hit area, showing how quickly post-disaster life was overtaken by renewed displacement and fear. Reuters and UN reporting likewise showed that military attacks continued even after the ceasefire announcements.

This is why the junta’s “revival” narrative is so hard to defend. A regime cannot credibly claim to be restoring normal life while it is still producing conditions that keep normal life impossible.

The political economy of damage

The earthquake also deepened Myanmar’s economic crisis. The Irrawaddy reported World Bank estimates that the quake would cut GDP by 2.5 percent in fiscal year 2025/26, with damage around $11 billion, or roughly 14 percent of GDP. That economic hit matters because recovery is never just about buildings. It is about whether households can still pay for food, transport, repairs, school costs, and medical care.

This is where authoritarian failure becomes material. Under military rule, reconstruction does not simply proceed slowly. It is distorted by patronage, fear, and political filtering. Donation ceremonies, ceasefire announcements, and public claims of control cannot substitute for the everyday work of restoring infrastructure, income, and trust.

What the one-year mark reveals

The first anniversary should not be treated as a symbolic closure. It is a measure of what has and has not happened. And what has happened is sobering: some aid delivered, some rebuilding begun, but not enough to call the response effective; some ceasefires announced, but not enough to end violence; some donations collected, but not enough to prove accountable reconstruction; some recovery visible, but not enough to restore confidence.

The strongest conclusion is also the simplest. Myanmar’s military junta could never be trusted to lead a humane or effective earthquake recovery because the logic of the regime is incompatible with the logic of public care. It governs through coercion, not consent; through secrecy, not transparency; through war, not protection.

That is why the earthquake became more than a natural disaster. It became an indictment.