The primary school headmaster was on a training course in Sagaing, the closest place to the epicentre, when the 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck.
The 47-year-old remembered a decades-old school lesson to shelter under a bed if the world starts to shake.
"As soon as I went under the bed, the whole hotel fell down and was blocked. All I could afford was to say 'save me'," he said.
"I was shouting 'save me, save me'."
The Swal Taw Nann guesthouse where he was staying was reduced to a pile of bricks and twisted metal strips, the broken shell of its top storey resting on the remains of those below, and Tin Maung Htwe in a ground floor room underneath it all.
"I felt as though I was in hell," he said weakly, an oxygen tube running to his nose and two intravenous drips into his reduced frame.
"My body was burning hot and all I needed was water. I couldn't get that water from anywhere.
"So I have to refill the water my body needed with fluids coming out of my body."
-- 'I am free' --
The intensity of destruction in Sagaing, closer to the epicentre, is far higher than in neighbouring Mandalay, with a much greater proportion of its buildings reduced to piles of debris.
Great gouges have been opened up in the main road towards it -- jamming traffic and hampering those trying to help the victims -- and the Ava bridge across the Irrawaddy linking the two cities is down, one end of six of its 10 spans resting in the placid waters.
Residents said the Myanmar Red Cross were recovering bodies from the site and were not expecting to find anyone alive when they located him, and a Malaysian rescue team was called in to extract him.
One of eight siblings, his sister Nan Yone, 50, was one of several of his relatives watching and waiting as they worked at the site.
"I can't describe it," said Nan Yone of his rescue on Wednesday.
"I was dancing, crying and beating my chest because I was so happy."
When he arrived at Sagaing's main hospital he gave her a thumbs-up and told her: "Sister I am very good."
"His will is very strong and I think that is why he survived," she said on the day he was rescued.
As she spoke nurses tended to her semi-conscious brother on a outdoor gurney, his head lolling occasionally from side to side.
No one is being treated indoors at the facility, for fear of an aftershock wreaking more havoc.
"I am glad I am free now," Tin Maung Htwe told AFP.
"I wouldn't be able to do anything if I was dead. I didn't die so now I can do whatever I wish."
He wants to go back to his work as a schoolteacher. But he added: "I am considering becoming a Buddhist monk."
Myanmar junta declares quake ceasefire as survivors plead for aid
Sagaing, Myanmar (AFP) April 2, 2025 -
Myanmar's junta announced a temporary ceasefire on Wednesday as the death toll from a devastating earthquake rose and desperate survivors pleaded for more help amid frantic scenes of aid distribution.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday flattened buildings across Myanmar, killing nearly 3,000 people and making thousands more homeless.
The military government said it would observe a ceasefire from Wednesday until April 22 to make quake relief efforts easier, after other armed groups fighting the country's bloody four-year civil war made similar pledges.
Rights groups and several foreign governments had earlier condemned the junta for continuing to carry out air strikes even as the country grappled with the quake aftermath.
The junta said in a statement the ceasefire had "the aim of speeding up relief and reconstruction efforts, and maintaining peace and stability".
But it warned its opponents -- a complex array of pro-democracy and ethnic minority armed groups -- it would still respond to attacks, acts of sabotage or "gathering, organising, and expanding territory that would undermine peace".
The junta also said Min Aung Hlaing will travel to Bangkok on Thursday for a summit of South Asian countries plus Myanmar and Thailand, where he will discuss the quake response.
It is a rare foreign trip for the leader, and something of a diplomatic coup as it breaks with a regional policy of not inviting junta leaders to major events in the wake of the putsch.
- Scramble for food -
AFP journalists saw frantic scenes as hundreds of desperate people scrambled for aid distribution in Sagaing, the city closest to the epicentre of the quake, with some running through traffic to join the queues.
Volunteers handed out water, rice, cooking oil and other basic supplies to residents clamouring for assistance.
"I have never queued for food like this before. I can't express how worried I am. I don't know what to say," Cho Cho Mar, 35, carrying her baby and clutching instant coffee packs and mosquito repellent, told AFP.
Destruction in the city is widespread, with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting that one in three houses have collapsed, and five days after the quake locals complained of a lack of help.
Aye Thi Kar, 63, head of a school for young nuns razed to the ground by the tremors, said food supplies were low but shelter was a bigger priority -- along with nets to ward off mosquitos in the stifling tropical heat.
Many people have been sleeping in the streets since the quake hit, unable to return to damaged buildings or fearful of aftershocks.
"Right now we need roofing and walls to have proper shelter for the night," she told AFP.
"We also need nets and blankets for sleeping, as we don't want to sleep directly on the ground."
Healthcare facilities, damaged by the quake and with limited capacity, are "overwhelmed by a large number of patients", while supplies of food, water and medicine are running low, WHO said in an update.
Hopes of finding more survivors are fading, but there were moments of joy on Wednesday as two men were pulled alive from the ruins of a hotel in the capital Naypyidaw.
- Call for peace -
The junta said Wednesday that the death toll had risen to 2,886, with more than 4,600 injured and 373 still missing.
But with patchy communication and infrastructure delaying efforts to gather information and deliver aid, the full scale of the disaster has yet to become clear, and the toll is likely to rise.
Relief groups say the overall quake response has been hindered by continued fighting between the junta and the complex patchwork of armed groups opposed to its rule, which began after the military seized power in a 2021 coup.
Even before Friday's earthquake, 3.5 million people were displaced by the fighting, many of them at risk of hunger, according to the United Nations.
Late Tuesday, an alliance of three of Myanmar's most powerful ethnic minority armed groups announced a one-month pause in hostilities.
The announcement by the Three Brotherhood Alliance followed a separate partial ceasefire called by the People's Defence Force -- civilian groups that took up arms after the coup to fight junta rule.
A junta spokesman said soldiers fired warning shots on Tuesday when a Chinese Red Cross convoy failed to stop while approaching a village in conflict-ridden Shan state to deliver aid to earthquake victims.
Hundreds of kilometres away, in the Thai capital Bangkok, workers continued to scour through the rubble of a 30-storey skyscraper that was still being built when it collapsed on Friday.
The death toll at the site has risen to 22, with more than 70 still believed trapped in the rubble.
burs-pdw/dhc
Scramble for food aid in Myanmar city near quake epicentre
Sagaing, Myanmar (AFP) April 2, 2025 -
Crowds jostled through traffic and braved scorching heat on Wednesday in a race to secure vital aid in a central Myanmar city ravaged five days ago by a deadly earthquake.
Sagaing lies just 14 kilometres (8.6 miles) from the epicentre of Friday's deadly quake, which flattened buildings across the country and have so far resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths.
The city has suffered some of the worst damage, and unreliable infrastructure -- already run down by four years of civil war -- has complicated efforts to provide relief.
"I have no idea how to repair my house," Cho Cho Mar told AFP while waiting in a queue for aid.
The 35-year-old mother of three is bearing a heavy burden, as urgency and competition for relief supplies in Sagaing runs high.
"I am also worried for my mother," she said, carrying her young daughter and clutching packs of instant coffee and mosquito repellent.
AFP journalists saw hectic scenes as hundreds of desperate people lined up for aid distribution in the city, some running through traffic to join the queues.
A local volunteer rescue team toured damaged and destroyed houses, handing out envelopes of money worth around $12, donated by private citizens.
One team leader said he had around $2,400 in local currency to hand out -- not nearly sufficient to meet local needs.
Attention in the relief efforts is now shifting slowly from rescuing trapped victims to helping those displaced and left without basic amenities.
- Moments of hope -
Still, some late miraculous developments have occurred, with several trapped victims rescued from the rubble alive on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tin Maung Htwe was one such fortunate individual.
The 47-year-old school headmaster was saved Wednesday after being stuck on the bottom floor of a hotel when the earthquake last week caused it to collapse.
"I was waiting at the site when they were trying to dig him up," his sister, Nan Yone, told AFP.
"We didn't know if he would be alive," she said.
"I was relieved when I saw him today. Everyone who helped him was very capable.
"His will is very strong and I think that is why he survived."
Nan Yone said that they normally live in Sagaing region, but they moved elsewhere for the past three years -- "fleeing from the fighting", she said.
Myanmar has been entrenched in a brutal conflict since 2021, when a military junta wrested power from Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government, and Sagaing has witnessed some of the worst of the fighting.
Today, however, the rescue of Nan Yone's brother is cause for celebration.
"I can't describe it. I was dancing, crying and beating my chest because I was so happy," she said.
Elsewhere, earthquake victims in Sagaing took to the banks of the Irrawaddy River as the sun set, bathing and washing clothes in its languid current just downstream from a collapsed colonial-era bridge to Mandalay.
The loss of the Ava Bridge, built under British rule nearly a century ago, has likely further hampered efforts to deliver aid to Sagaing, where recovery appeared more hectic than in nearby Mandalay.
"We haven't got the food we need," Thin Thin Khaing told AFP while queuing for aid.
The 49-year-old woman said that her house was "cracked and leaning".
She added that what she needed wasn't much: "Just some medicine if possible, and some rice and oil."
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