Rescue workers in Myanmar and Thailand are scrambling to find survivors, after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the centre of Myanmar. Also: Vance scolds Denmark during Greenland trip as Trump says US must have island.
Chapter 1: What are the main stories covered in this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright, and in the early hours of Saturday, the 29th of March, these are our main stories. Rescue workers in Myanmar and Thailand are scrambling to find survivors after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the center of Myanmar. The U.S.
vice president has taken aim at Denmark on a visit to Greenland, accusing it of underinvesting in the security of the semi-autonomous territory. and family members of Venezuelans deported to an El Salvador prison say they are trapped in a nightmare.
Also in this podcast... You take the sourest apples that you can find, roast them in a fire until they're soft, and then mix quicksilver, mercury, in with them, and then slather this on your body.
Chapter 2: What is the current situation in Myanmar after the earthquake?
We look at medieval cures... As we record this podcast, it's the early hours of the morning in Myanmar and Thailand, where rescue operations have been continuing after the huge earthquake on Friday. In Thailand, attention is focusing on a high-rise building which collapsed in the capital Bangkok. At least six people have been found dead and around 100 people are missing.
And we'll be hearing from there a little later. In Myanmar, the picture is still unclear, but the authorities say 144 people have been killed. There are fears that that number will rise much higher. The 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the centre of the country in the early afternoon. The epicentre was in Sergai, close to Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, where a historic pagoda collapsed.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry!
These people in Mandalay described what they saw to the Burmese service.
All of Mandalay is now a scene of tragedy. It's like a ruined city. Some are still stuck under rubble. The ornamental entrances to the big pagoda fell down. Private hospitals and hotels were damaged. All buildings were mostly damaged. It was so severe, so severe that I have never seen anything shaking like that. There are so many injured people at the general hospital.
He sat down on his knees in front of that house there as the quake started. The building collapsed on him. It killed him. When it was so noisy and banging, I had to balance myself not to fall. I also saw the damage and chaos.
What's more, the country is in the grip of a civil war and in an unusual move, the head of the military junta asked for international help.
As we're in the middle of a massive relief effort after this natural disaster, I would like to request all people to help as much as you can. I have declared a state of emergency in all the affected areas and have opened all ways for foreign aid.
Aid workers in the country say it will be difficult to get help to the affected areas because of the collapse in transport infrastructure. Dr Chi Min is the national director of World Vision and based in the former capital and largest city, Yangon.
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Chapter 3: How is the earthquake affecting Thailand, especially Bangkok?
But how easy will it be for international aid to get in? Very difficult because they're really starting from scratch. And one of the key things that I've been hearing from aid agencies who have tried to continue to have a presence in the country are through local partners, is that they face intimidation from the military when they try to act.
They're also operating in a very active civil war, so they also need to negotiate with the pro-democracy rebels as well. And the Myanmar military has a history of denying aid to opposition areas and blocking aid. So there's concern from aid agency people that I've been speaking to today that they
This open door request may not really lead to something on the ground that they can work with, but they're willing to try. We're hearing from all agencies that they're gearing up. They're going to go in. They're going to help. And looking at this from an optimistic kind of lens, this could be a window that the country is craving for, for the world to pay attention to what's happening.
inside Myanmar. Of all the pro-democracy groups I speak to, the world's forgotten Myanmar and how this earthquake has forced us to look at it. Perhaps this is the window where things change.
Rebecca Henshke. Across the border, Thailand's capital Bangkok has been declared a disaster zone. As a result of the earthquake, a multi-storey building under construction collapsed in a tangled heap. Nick Marsh is at the scene.
I'm looking right now at the devastation that it's wrought here in Bangkok. There was a skyscraper that was being built. It was supposed to be a 30-story building. It was going to be a government building here in the Thai capital. But it totally collapsed in a matter of seconds. There were around 400 workers believed to be on the construction site.
When the building collapsed, many people were able to sort of scrabble out. A lot of people managed to escape from the site. But it's thought that around 100 people are still buried under the rubble. And I'm just looking at it now. I'm standing on an overpass about... 50, 60 metres away from me, and it is vast. It is a vast mountain of rubble. There are sniffer dogs looking around.
There are lots of rescue workers just desperately trying to battle through this rubble, trying to find any sign of survivors. They've been doing this for hours, by the way, Rachel, and so far, apart from the immediate aftermath of that collapse, we haven't seen any survivors come out. So people really are bracing themselves for the worst here.
I understand Thailand's prime minister visited the site and held a press conference. What has she been saying?
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Chapter 4: What is the US's stance on Greenland, and why is it controversial?
Spring is on its way in Greenland, and in Nukes Harbour, we found a few fishermen trying to steer their small boats out to sea past giant chunks of ice. Carl Peter was hoping to catch halibut, but his mind was on Donald Trump and America's declared ambition to annex his homeland.
I don't feel safe. I'm worried. Trump is trying to control the country. What do you think is going to happen? I have no idea. What do you want to happen? I want Greenland to control its own fate.
President Trump underlined his intentions by sending a high-level delegation to Greenland uninvited. The vice president, J.D. Vance, visited an American military base in the far north of the island. Greenland, as part of Denmark, is a close American ally, but that didn't stop Mr. Vance from lashing out at his hosts.
Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change. And because it hasn't changed, this is why President Trump's policy in Greenland is what it is.
Denmark's Prime Minister Mete Fredriksson acknowledged the need for more focus on security in the Arctic, but she bristled at the suggestion that her country, a strong NATO ally, was not playing its part. Meanwhile, in Nuuk, there were celebrations to mark the formation of a new coalition government for Greenland.
The focus on steering this giant island slowly away from Danish control and towards independence. This is a small community with an emphasis on consensus and America's bullying style doesn't fit well here. Vivian Motzfeld is a local MP.
All Greenlandic people have already shouted out to the world that the Greenlandic people is the one who's going to decide how the future is going to be.
And not as an American state?
Not as an American state.
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Chapter 5: Why were Venezuelans deported to El Salvador, and what are the implications?
Pop stars and tech titans, founders and filmmakers, inventors and investors, we cover them all. And for the first time, we're talking about a video game designer.
Yeah, we're talking about Marcus Persson, the Swedish coding king who programmed the world's most successful game, Minecraft, all by himself.
He made a billion, but is he good, bad, or just another billionaire? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire, listen on the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Now to a controversial decision by the U.S. to deport 240 Venezuelans to El Salvador instead of back to their country of origin. The Trump administration expelled the men under a little-used law, claiming they were Venezuelan gang members. But relatives of the detainees dispute that. They're being held in a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador.
Some see their detention as part of President Bukele's wider gang crackdown. From San Salvador, Will Grant reports.
As 238 shackled Venezuelans landed in El Salvador, they were then bundled onto buses and taken to probably the most feared prison in the Americas. The Secot, or Terrorism Confinement Centre, was set up by the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, to house hardened members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.
The Trump administration accuses the men of belonging to a Venezuelan gang and removed them from US soil without due process, under the 1789 Alien Enemies Act. Some 1,800 kilometres away, Getrudes Pineda is growing increasingly desperate about the well-being of her son, Oscar. Having entered the US illegally, he was working as a carpet layer.
She'd heard he'd been picked up by US immigration agents and was in Texas en route back to Venezuela. Her other son, living in Colombia, soon called her to say he'd seen Oscar's name on a list of those sent to El Salvador. They're not from El Salvador, they're Venezuelans, said Gertrudis. If they've committed a crime, let them face the charges in Venezuela, she added.
Outside the Salvadoran Supreme Court, lawyer Jaime Ortega addressed the press after lodging a petition of habeas corpus to try to secure the men's immediate release, and argues that there are some major legal irregularities in the transfer of the men to El Salvador.
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