A Chinese UN staff member told CGTN that restoring power is now the top priority for recovery efforts as March marks one of the region's hottest months – with temperatures regularly exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.

LIU CHONG UN staff in Myanmar "The difficulty now is that we are out of power, out of water, and out of any network. We are in the dry season, so the temperature in Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw can easily go up above 40 degrees (Celsius) and even last night I was not able to sleep because it was so hot and for the people of Myanmar you can imagine how they are suffering. So yeah, without the electricity, there's no way to cool down at the temperature, especially there's no AC. There's no fan functioning at the moment."

CHEN MENGFEI CGTN "So would you say restoring power is the top priority at the moment?"

LIU CHONG UN staff in Myanmar "Yes. Always. Restoring power and accessibility to sanitized water and food. I think at the moment what they need the most is international rescue teams. From our side we are mobilizing all the food and non-food items such as biscuits and resources to treat malnutrition for about one million people. Because we are serving the most vulnerable, that includes female-headed households, even children-headed households, people with disabilities or pregnant women or with children under five. So these are the people that we're most focusing on and for them access to food sometimes can be a challenge. So that's why I say providing food for those people is one of the top priorities for us."