Burmese academic Sophia Htwe spent hours desperately trying to call home from Australia after the magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck her hometown in Myanmar in late March, before learning that a childhood friend had been trapped in the rubble.
Friends from the central-northwestern region of Sagaing told her that the friend had been freed but died from her injuries after receiving no medical treatment.
"That just really broke me. ... This is actually the failure of the military junta and the military coup," she said, referring to the junta's attacks on health care since they seized power in February 2021.
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