The man mourning 170 loved ones lost in Myanmar’s earthquake

As the call to prayer rang out in Sagaing last Friday, hundreds of Muslims hurried to the five mosques in central Myanmar.They were eager to hold their last Friday prayers for Ramadan, just days away from the festive period of Eid that would mark the end of the holy month.Then, at 12:51 local time (06:21 GMT), a deadly earthquake struck. Three mosques collapsed, including the biggest one, Myoma, killing almost everyone inside.Hundreds of kilometres away, the former imam of Myoma mosque, Soe Nay Oo, felt the quake in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.In the following days, he found out that around 170 of his relatives, friends and members of his former congregation had died, mostly in the mosques. Some were leading figures in the city’s close-knit Muslim community.”I think about all the people who lost their lives, and the victims’ children – some of them are young children,” he told the BBC. “I can’t hold back my tears when I talk about this.”More than 2,700 people have died in the quake which happened near Sagaing and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city. The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to pull out bodies from rubble.