A rescuer carries equipment as a team searches through the rubble of a destroyed building looking for survivors in Mandalay on March 29, 2025, a day after an earthquake struck central Myanmar. Sai Aung Main, AFP

MANILA — Around 100 Filipinos based in Mandalay will be transferred to Yangon this week as structures in Myanmar’s second-largest city remain unsafe after a 7.7-magnitude quake devastated parts of southeast Asia last week, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Wednesday.

Of the 171 Filipinos in Mandalay, 97 have asked the Philippine government to transfer them to Myanmar’s largest city, DFA officials said in a virtual press conference.

The Philippine Embassy in Myanmar is now “coordinating buses for Filipinos who will be transferred to Yangon,” DFA Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega said.

“It’s not a safe situation to be there [in Mandalay],” he said.

“Yangon, where majority of the Filipinos are, was not affected [by the quake],” he said.

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Of the 171 Filipinos in Mandalay, 120 have been marked safe, 4 are still missing, while the rest have yet to respond to DFA messages, said DFA Director Catherine Alpay.

“‘Yung iba hindi naman nagrereply pero wala namang indication that they are missing,” she said.

The DFA is paying for the shelter of Filipinos who were affected by the temblor that devastated parts of Myanmar last week, De Vega said.

Post-quake conditions continue to be dire, with some workers from the Philippine Embassy “staying in tents” in Mandalay as they scoured the city for the four missing Filipinos, the official said.

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The DFA may not be able to grant the request of some Filipinos to fly to Myanmar to help authorities look for their missing kin in Mandalay, De Vega said.

“We might be able to bring them to Yangon, but to bring them to Mandalay, it’s a 15-hour drive because of the earthquake,” he said.

“When they get there, it is the host country which will control the situation,” he added. “Hindi papayag yung authority na hindi taga-Embassy yung pupunta sa affected areas.” 

Of the nearly 1,000 Filipinos in Myanmar, 764 are in Yangon, 171 are in Mandalay, while 25 others are in the capital Naypyidaw, the DFA said.

So far, only one Filipino has asked the government for repatriation, the agency said.

At least 2,000 people were killed in Myanmar last week after buildings collapsed, roads cracked and fissures surfaced above ground when the 7.7-magnitude quake and succeeding aftershocks hit the country.

The Philippines has deployed a team of experts to help in the search, rescue and retrieval operations in Myanmar.