Myanmar earthquake death toll climbs to over 2,700, local media reports
Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua via Getty Images
(MANDALAY CITY, MYANMAR) — At least 2,719 people have been confirmed dead in the aftermath of Friday’s massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, a government official told local media on Tuesday.
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said during a televised broadcast that another 4,521 people were injured, according to The Associated Press and Reuters.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
Three people were killed when a large avalanche swept away a group of skiers in Canada, officials said.
The avalanche struck just before 1 p.m. on Monday when two groups of skiers had just finished skiing and were waiting in a staging area below the tree line of Clute Creek water shed in an alpine area on the east side of Kootenay Lake in the British Columbia backcountry, according to a statement from the Kaslo Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“A transport helicopter was nearing the group when the pilot observed an avalanche and sounded the siren,” officials said. “One group of skiers was able to run out of harm’s way, while the other group of four was swept away into the tree line.”
Efforts to recover the men were immediately initiated but when officials located them, they found three of them deceased.
They were identified as “a 44-year-old man from Whistler BC, a 45-year-old man from Idaho USA and the 53-year-old guide from Kaslo BC.”
The fourth man, a 40-year-old from Nelson, British Columbia, was critically injured.
Avalanche Canada said the Kootenays have a high danger rating at all elevations and that rising temperatures can create avalanche conditions.
(LONDON) — Ukraine has accused Russia of committing a war crime after a Russian drone struck a military hospital in Kharkiv overnight.
Ukraine’s General Staff said the strikes were a “deliberate, targeted striking” of the hospital and that it appeared soldiers being treated there were injured. It said the medical center and nearby residential buildings were damaged as a result of a “defeat of” a Russian Shahed drone.
Photos from the scene appear to show damage to the hospital, with an entrance way demolished.
Russian drones also hit apartment blocks and a shopping mall in the center of Ukraine’s second largest city, killing at least two people and wounding 25, according to Kharkiv’s governor.
“War crimes have no statute of limitations. The relevant evidence will be transferred to the bodies of international criminal justice,” the General Staff wrote in a statement on the hospital attack.
Ukrainian cites are bombed by dozens of Russian drones every night, and this weekend has seen a particularly intense wave of attacks in civilian areas of major cities. Dnipro in southeast Ukraine suffered on Friday night heavy strikes that started major fires.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said over the past week Russia had launched over 1,000 drones, nine missiles and over 1,300 guided aerial bombs, with most of Ukraine’s regions coming under attack. He said Ukraine had shot down a “significant number” of the drones and missiles.
“Russia is dragging out the war,” Zelenskyy wrote in a statement on X, saying Ukraine had shared information on Russia’s strikes with its allies and that it expects a “response from the United States, Europe and all our allies to this terror against our people.”
Russia has also intensified its ground offensive operations in recent days amid, according to Ukraine’s military, amid the ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to end the war.
Ukraine’s General Staff as well as Ukrainian military analysts report in the past few days Russia has launched some of the largest number of ground assaults since the start of the year.
“The number of enemy assaults has exceeded 200 times per day for the last three days,” Deep State, a blog account that tracks the war and is close to Ukraine’s military, wrote Friday. This is the highest three-day intensity of the year.”
It follows warnings this week by Zelenskyy that Russia is preparing to launch a major spring offensive, even as it tries to drag out negotiations with the Trump administration.
The Russian attacks are focused most of all in eastern Ukraine, in the direction of Pokrovsk, an important defensive hub that Russia has been trying to seize for more than 6 months.
Russian forces had scaled back their attacks in recent weeks in part due to poor ground conditions and apparently also worn down by extremely heavy losses. But it appears they are now renewing their offensive operations.
Ukrainian and western officials warned that President Vladimir Putin of Russia will try to use protracted negotiations as an opportunity to also advance on the battlefield, hoping to crack Ukraine’s defenses as the Trump administration weakens western support for Kyiv.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Russia has carried out a massive missile and drone attack on Ukraine overnight, targeting energy and gas infrastructure in various regions, Ukrainian officials said Friday morning.
A total of 261 missiles and drones were launched by Russia, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, which said it used Mirage-2000 fighter jets for the first time alongside F-16s to repel the attack.
The latest attack is one of the largest air attacks of the war to date as Russia, in recent months, has dramatically increased the number of drones it can launch every night against Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there can be “no pause” in pressure on Russia earlier this week just the day after the U.S. confirmed it had stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv.
President Donald Trump’s decision to pause all U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing has raised concerns that Ukraine’s air defenses will become less effective in the days, weeks and months to come.
The pause followed last week’s explosive Oval Office meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump. White House officials have suggested the freeze may be lifted if Ukraine takes concrete steps towards a peace deal with Russia to end Moscow’s 3-year-old invasion.
It now appears likely that Russia will try to increase these attacks at a critical time as the end of U.S. intelligence sharing and supplies of anti-aircraft missiles could weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend against them.
Russian missiles and drone attacks are a nightly occurrence in Ukraine. The country has become largely reliant on Western anti-air weapons to defeat incoming projectiles.
U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine had allowed Kyiv to give warnings to targeted areas ahead of Russian drone and missile strikes, tracking Russian aircraft taking off, drones being launched and missiles being fired.
A Ukrainian intelligence official told ABC News on Wednesday that the intelligence sharing pause included a halt in sharing U.S. satellite imagery through the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Trump has repeatedly — and falsely — blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia while seeking to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as president. The White House is pushing Kyiv to accept a deal to end the fighting and to sign an agreement giving the U.S. access to Ukrainian mineral resources.
