Photo: AFP/LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA
A Fiji expatriate living in Myanmar says the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck the Southeast Asian nation last Friday was traumatising.
The earthquake near the city of Mandalay has killed more than 2000 people.
Manasa Qaranivalu was at work in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, when the earthquake struck.
He told Pacific Waves that he was in a "panic mode" and thought his office building was going to collapse on him.
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He was on the fifth floor of a nine-story building.
"All these shades were shaking and my computer was moving, the books; everything was shaking.
"I was thinking of my family, and then I was thinking... what if this building collapsed? What if this ceiling falls on me?
"The thing that calms me down was I pull up my cell phone and then I press video recording... In my mind I was thinking if somethng happens at least I have something recorded."
He remembers trying to get under the table, then attempting to open the door, and heard screaming from another office.
"It was shaking so hard. And finally I just opened the door and came running outside and everybody from the ninth floor coming running down so we all rushed outside."
He said his family back home in Fiji was worried after seeing the news online, and he is grateful he was able to speak to his mother.
This frame grab from UGC video footage taken and posted by Khon Su Cheevit Adeet Mai Suay Rok Na on Facebook on March 28, 2025 shows workers running away from a building as it collapses at a construction site in Bangkok. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP
Qaranivalu said after the quake, joining up with other Fijian and Samoan families in Bangkok has brought him a sense of comfort and relief.
"It was a very good time, encouragement for us just to see another Pasifika vuvale expat just talking about life," he said.
"We came [Sunday] and they all were here and everybody just congregated together, and just say 'how was it when you guys went through that situation'.
"Everybody on the same boat."
But Qaranivalu said they are grateful for the help that came.
"On Saturday, another Singaporean army, the rescue mission, they came; Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and just [Sunday], before we left Myanmar, we had the Thai royal forces. They came with supplies and stuff like that."
Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, has been complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless. Anti-coup fighters in Myanmar declared a two-week partial ceasefire as the military began on Sunday to facilitate rescue operations and other relief work.
Senior Myanmar adviser at Crisis Group Richard Horsey said some anti-junta forces have halted their offensives but fighting continues elsewhere.
Qaranivalu works in deaf education, and said the country has become like his family's home.
"We moved into Myanmar in 2012 and we're still there now.
"Both my kids were born in Myanmar and we love Myanmar."
