WHO readying medical supplies for 'huge' Myanmar quake

A resident looks on next to a collapsed building in Mandalay on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar.

The WHO said it had triggered its emergency management system in response to Friday's "huge" earthquake in Myanmar and was mobilising its logistics hub in Dubai to prepare trauma injury supplies.

The World Health Organization is coordinating its earthquake response from its Geneva headquarters "because we see this as a huge event" with "clearly a very, very big threat to life and health", spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a media briefing.

"We've activated our logistics hub to look particularly for trauma supplies and things like external fixators because we expect that there will be many, many injuries that need to be dealt with," Harris said.

She said the WHO would also be concentrating on getting in essential medicines, while the health infrastructure in Myanmar itself might be damaged.

Harris said that due to recent experience with the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes, "we know very well what you need to send in first".

The UN health agency already has a special cell to deal with Myanmar, which has been rocked by fighting between numerous ethnic rebel groups and the army.

And by chance, the WHO had done an assessment in recent weeks of the best ways to get supplies into Myanmar.

"We are ready to move in -- but now we have to know exactly where, what and why. It's information from the ground that's really critical right now," said Harris.