Blackouts and soaring fuel prices in Myanmar add to despair

Street food vendors wait for customers during a power outage in Yangon on March 3, 2022. - AFP

BANGKOK (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): Myint's family has not been switching off the lights for a few weeks now. This allows them to be alerted whenever the power supply comes back on.

When it does, even in the wee hours of the morning, her mother gets up to cook. Her father starts up the electric pump to collect water from their well.