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.