Death toll

Spanish Transportation Minister Óscar Puente warned the number of fatalities may continue to rise and thanked rescue teams working through the night.

“Be assured” of Christ’s “closeness,” the pope said. “He is not distant from what you are experiencing” but “shares it and carries it with you.”

“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said a government official.

Disaster struck when, in the hundreds, the worshippers climbed on a makeshift scaffold to catch a glimpse of a mural on the church ceiling.

Storm showed “deep racial and socio-economic disparities across various sectors” — environmental justice, systemic housing inequality, and disaster response. 

An archbishop in Myanmar said the suffering of his people has brought them closer to God, and they have “hope in God’s mercy, in the certainty of his love.”

The earthquake hit the country at a time of uncertainty due to the ongoing civil war between resistance groups and Myanmar’s governing military junta, which overthrew the previous democratically elected …