The dust from the devastating earthquake on Friday was still churning in Myanmar when an existential question swirled into the mix: Could this fatal clash of tectonic plates, which added yet another layer of trauma to a country already plagued by civil war, also portend the demise of Myanmar’s ruling junta?
The earthquake, known to have killed at least 1,000 and probably many more than that, struck a day after Myanmar’s military regime celebrated the country’s 80th Armed Forces Day with a parade in Naypyidaw, the capital purpose-built by a previous group of generals.
The sequence of events was hard to ignore.
Omens and rumors have long been prized in an authoritarian country with little free flow of information. When the ruling generals grabbed power four years ago, they sealed off the country and reverted to a reverence of superstition and propaganda. And earthquakes do figure into astrological almanacs that are well thumbed in Myanmar. A popular version states that an earthquake in March signals the destruction of cities, while one in July is an augury of kings and rulers deposed.
The junta’s stronghold remains in the cities, like in Mandalay, the second-largest in the country and one of the hardest hit by the earthquake. Daw Marlar Myint, 89, said this was the worst natural disaster she had ever experienced. A retired school principal, she is not waiting until July to cast her prediction.
“We have a saying that a massive earthquake like this is nature’s way of punishing a cruel and corrupt ruler,” she said. “After killing so many people, Min Aung Hlaing is now facing the judgment of nature.”
“Even the bones of those he murdered are trembling,” she added.
Since Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in 2021, civil war has flared in this Southeast Asian country. The majority of territory is now in resistance hands, with the military fortified in the big cities. The junta has terrorized civilian areas with airstrikes outpaced in recent months only by those rained on Gaza.
The Myanmar rebels — an unwieldy assortment of ethnic minority militias, opposition politicians and tech-savvy youth who are honing drone warfare out of jury-rigged parts — have fought hard with little international support. The Myanmar military is bleeding soldiers, with desertion rife. Still, it is punishing jungle warfare, and both sides are desperate for an exit.
And as people in Myanmar surveyed the aftermath of the earthquake on Saturday, with screams from those trapped under the wreckage still echoing through towns, the full extent of the devastation is only beginning to take shape.
Ko Kyaw works in Singapore, part of the large diaspora of young, educated people from Myanmar who fled their country to look for better jobs overseas. He had been sending money back home to his parents, wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 7. They all died in the earthquake, when their condominium building in Mandalay crashed to the ground. Their bodies were part of a pile arranged inside a nearby hall, no space for burial yet.
For most of its post-colonial history, Myanmar, previously known as Burma, has been ruled by military dictatorships. Generations of generals have relied on fortunetellers and astrologers to guide their policy decisions. A former junta chief consulted a dwarf who spoke through her sister. (That sister continued to prognosticate after her sibling died, but her prophecies lost authenticity, according to those who initially paid a lot of money for her solo consultation sessions.)
One former spy chief collected white elephants (the real, live kind) to burnish his power. An earlier junta leader was so superstitious about the number nine that he denominated the country’s currency by it, including 45 and 90 kyat notes. And General Min Aung Hlaing, the current military chief, has consecrated temples and a giant Buddha in Naypyidaw to burnish his reputation. He has collected white elephants, too.
For the generals, perhaps the most consequential prophecy came in 2005. That is when seers determined the precise timing most auspicious for beginning a secret move of Myanmar’s capital from Yangon to an as-yet unnamed construction site in the center of the country. After consultations with fortunetellers, trucks began a convoy north to what would soon be called Naypyidaw, or the abode of kings.
Today, the new capital is defended by hills and invulnerable to attack by sea, unlike Yangon. When Cyclone Nargis slammed into the old capital and the nearby Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing, Naypyidaw was unscathed. The generals celebrated their bunkered capital, with its grand boulevards, massive ministries and penguins on ice (again, the real, live kind).
But Friday’s earthquake was not so benign to Naypyidaw. Government ministries cracked. Portraits of top leaders, including of General Min Aung Hlaing, fell to the floor. The air traffic control tower in the capital toppled, killing at least seven people, according to Myanmar state media.
In hills not too far away, rebel forces are watching. With fewer high buildings in the territory they control, the earthquake on Friday had less effect on them. But even as residents of Mandalay and other urban areas, like Sagaing and Kyaukse, dug through the rubble with their bare hands, prying out each brick to get closer to possible survivors, the Myanmar military resumed its old habits.
On Friday evening, in northern Shan State, which borders Mandalay Region, junta fighter jets dropped bombs on Naung Lin village, which is held by the rebels. There were no casualties this time, but sorties two days before killed four people in nearby villages. And a week and half before that, 10 people sheltering in a seminary in the same township died in aerial raids.
“I just can’t believe they did airstrikes at the same time as the earthquake,” said Lway Yal Oo, a Naung Lin resident. “Min Aung Hlaing is creating a killing field in Myanmar.”
In Yangon, an astrologer for a top junta official said that the top brass’s belief in star signs has not waned. If anything, they are hanging on even more to faith as their grip on the country diminishes, she said. The astrologer, who did not want her name used because of the sensitivity of speaking about her high-profile military clients, said that General Min Aung Hlaing relies heavily on Buddhist talismans to stay in power.
On Saturday morning, a military intermediary called her, the astrologer said, and requested help in protecting the junta chief’s hold on Myanmar. She advised a Buddha amulet, to be worn at all times.
But, the astrologer said, she thought the earthquake was an ominous sign for the general.
