A massive earthquake that rocked Myanmar could exacerbate hunger and disease outbreaks in a country already wracked by food shortages, mass displacement and civil war, aid groups and the United Nations warned Monday. The official death toll climbed past 1,700, but the true figure is feared to be much higher. The 7.7 magnitude quake hit Friday, with an epicenter near Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay, damaging the city’s airport, buckling roads and downing hundreds of buildings along a wide swath of territory down the middle of the country. Some 270 monks were taking an exam in Mandalay’s U Hla Thein monastery, which crumpled to the ground when the quake struck. Seventy were able to escape, but rescue workers at the scene Monday said 50 were found dead and that they were still searching for 150 more in the rubble. Some 700 Muslim worshippers attending Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadan were also killed when mosques collapsed, said Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network. It was not clear whether they or the monks were already included in the official count. Tun Kyi said some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed, and videos posted on The Irrawaddy online news site showed several mosques toppling during the quake, and people fleeing from the areas. With an ongoing civil war and poor infrastructure, Myanmar was already one of the most challenging places in the world for aid organizations to operate, and relief efforts have been further hampered by severe damage to roads, bridges and hospitals, power outages, fuel shortages and spotty communications. A lack of heavy machinery has slowed search-and-rescue operations, forcing many to search for survivors by hand, with daily temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Government spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told state-run MRTV that more than 1,700 people had been found dead and that another 3,400 have been injured and more than 300 were missing. “This latest tragedy compounds an already dire crisis and risks further eroding the resilience of communities already battered by conflict, displacement, and past disasters,” the United Nations’ Myanmar country team said Monday, calling for unimpeded access for aid convoys, medical personnel and assessment teams. “Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar were in need of humanitarian assistance,” said Marcoluigi Corsi, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar. Full extent of the devastation is not yet clear Aid agencies in Myanmar say their teams on the ground still don’t have a true picture of the devastation. “We’re really not clear on the scale of the destruction at this stage,” Lauren Ellery, deputy director of programs in Myanmar for the International Rescue Committee, told The Associated Press. “They were talking about a town near Mandalay where 80% of the buildings were reportedly collapsed, but it wasn’t in the news because telecommunications have been slow.” And groups the IRC works with reported that some places have been physically cut off by landslides, she said. The World Health Organization said it has reports of three hospitals destroyed and 22 partially damaged in the region. “The scale of deaths and injuries is not yet fully understood and the numbers are expected to increase,” the U.N. agency said in a report. “The earthquake’s devastation has overwhelmed health care facilities in the affected areas, […]