After a four-year long civil war, a severe food crisis and an economy on the decline, Myanmar now finds itself devastated by a powerful earthquake.

On Friday, the 7.7 magnitude quake hit the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar, and was followed by reports of destruction coming from nearby Mandalay – the country’s second largest city – as well as the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, which is more than 150 miles (241km) away.

Getting information out of Myanmar is difficult. Mobile lines in the affected areas have been patchy since the quake struck, but tens of thousands of people also live without electricity and there is limited access to the internet. Foreign journalists are also rarely allowed to enter officially due to a lack of press freedom.

So, how did Myanmar get here?

The country has seen decades of unrest and military rule since its independence from Britain in 1948.

In 2011, it appeared to move away from this and free elections were held four years later, which Aung San Suu Kyi won.

Democratic hopes were dashed in 2021, when she and her government were overthrown by a coup led by General Min Aung Hlaing.

He detained and charged Ms Suu Kyi and other members of her government, making allegations of widespread fraud in a vote held months earlier, when her National League for Democracy party won more than 80% of the ballot.

The coup triggered huge protests, with thousands taking to the streets daily, demanding the restoration of civilian rule. Violence quickly escalated between civilians and the military, with the army responding with brutal force, using tear gas and rubber bullets against crowds.

Rights groups believe hundreds of people died and thousands were injured in the crackdown.

What initially began as a civil disobedience campaign soon evolved into a widespread insurgency involving pro-democracy and ethnic rebel groups – which eventually sparked an all-out civil war.

Four years on, violent fighting has continued between the military on the one hand, and ethnic armies and armed resistance groups on the other.

The military has suffered huge losses and is no longer in control of large parts of the country. Discontent with General Min Aung Hlaing, too, has risen among the army’s ranks as more and more soldiers defect.

The fighting has left millions living in constant fear and insecurity – with little access to basic needs, including medical care and food, say rights groups.

More than 3.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting, according to the UN, which also said that this number will only grow as the conflict continues.

Food insecurity has reached “unprecedented levels”, the organisation’s world food program says, adding that rapid inflation has made food unaffordable for many.

Earlier this week, the UN announced it would cut aid to more than one million people in Myanmar from next month, citing global funding shortfalls.

This comes months after more than 200 people died in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, which triggered severe floods and mudslides in Myanmar and left hundreds of thousands of acres of crops destroyed.

Friday’s earthquake will no doubt add to the suffering of the country’s 50 million people.

It struck near the city of Sagaing – a rebel stronghold. Just months ago, it was the site of heavy fighting between rebels and the military, with local reports saying that air strikes were launched, causing thousands to flee.

The second-largest city, Mandalay, has also been hit by the earthquake, and is home to 1.5 million people. The Mandalay region has seen intense fighting between resistance troops and the army.

A very slow limited stream of information coming out of the country suggests that a hospital in the capital Naypyidaw, where the military government sits, has been turned into a “mass casualty site” – the few visuals we can see paint a picture of destruction, showing cracked roads and collapsed buildings.

“Hundreds of injured people are arriving… but the emergency building here also collapsed,” security officials at the hospital told AFP.

The country’s junta has now declared a state of emergency in multiple regions and made a rare request for international aid.

But it is unclear how they will respond to the earthquake as they fight a war under the leadership of an embattled general.

UK car firms are seeking support from the government as hopes fade a deal can be reached with US President Donald Trump over US tariffs.

Companies met with industry minister Sarah Jones on Friday morning to discuss their response to plans for 25% tariffs on US car imports from next week, the BBC understands.

The UK government is trying to negotiate exemptions from a wide range of US import levies due to come into force at midnight on 3 April.

But some car companies believe it is now too late to delay the measure, and instead want to discuss support options.

Insiders with knowledge of the “well-attended” online meeting, said car firms outlined the challenges they faced, saying tariffs came on top of other pressures such as the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

The BBC understands that there was a consensus the government should make every effort to reach a deal. But the government was “in listening mode” and did not put forward any responses.

There was also no indication that an agreement could be reached with the US on tariffs before the introduction next week, one source said.

US tariffs could have a huge impact on the UK economy, with the government’s official forecaster estimating that in a worst case scenario taxes could reduce economic growth by 1% and wipe out Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s £9.9bn headroom against her debt rules.

Government sources said there is “still all to play for” in negotiations over 25% tariffs placed on car imports into the US ahead of next week.

The UK has said it will “not be jumping into a trade war” with the US. Treasury minister Darren Jones said the UK has to take a “different approach” to other countries when it comes to negotiating tariffs with the US.

Jones said “there is no easy answer” and there are “complicated issues” to be discussed.

While the government said it was “disappointed” by the decision to impose tariffs on cars, it said the US was “an indispensable ally” and Britain was taking a “pragmatic” approach to import taxes.

The UK response is in contrast with other nations such as Germany which has said it “will not give in” and urged Europe to “respond firmly” to the taxes.

France and Canada have vowed trade retaliation against the US, with Canada’s new prime minister Mark Carney – the former governor of the Bank of England – saying his country would “fight”, adding that the longstanding Canada-US relationship is “over”.

Car firms across a range of countries saw their share prices fall sharply following Trump’s tariffs announcement.

This included US automotive-makers such as General Motors, Ford and even Tesla, which is owned by major Trump ally Elon Musk.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the tariffs come at “a very difficult time for the industry” with UK car production falling 12% in February compared to the year before.

“Consumer confidence is on edge, we know it’s a highly competitive market, and even electric vehicles aren’t perhaps quite selling as quickly as hoped,” he said.”

Ineos Automotive, a start-up carmaker, told the BBC the tariffs are a “significant threat” since the US is its biggest market and its manufacturing is based in the European Union (EU).

Ineos chief executive Lynn Calder said she was “hugely frustrated” that EU politicians had “sat on their hands” and “not come to the negotiating table” with Trump.

“Mr Trump was talking very early in the year about reciprocal and fair tariffs,” she said. “There was a deal to be done here, there was a win-win solution.”

“I think we’re at a situation right now where the EU decides whether it wants an automotive industry or not,” she added.

Trump has used powers designed to avert national security threats to levy the tax.

An initial wave of tariffs on cars are due to come into force on 3 April, with import taxes on auto parts following a month later.

Vehicles are the UK’s biggest export to the US, totalling 101,000 last year worth £9bn.

The industry is likely to ask for a support package from the UK government to manage the disruption.

The government is already consulting on changing the mandate for zero electric vehicles, which could end up costing UK manufacturers and subsidising importers such as Tesla, which is controlled by key Trump ally Elon Musk.

The mandate sets out the percentage of new zero emission cars and vans that manufacturers will be required to sell each year up to 2030.

Reeves has told the BBC that Tesla gets some money from the ZEV mandate.

Any tweak to it could help UK exporters but disadvantage Tesla, which specifically wrote to the new government last July to ask them not to change it.

Only a handful of ministers and officials know the content of the UK’s talks with the US administration, which are believed to be about the whole package of tariffs, not just the car sector.

While progress has been made, one negotiator said it will all come down to Trump.

Earlier this week he insisted there would be no carve-outs for car imports, but deals are being done across the globe over wider so-called “reciprocal tariffs” expected next week.

The BBC has “decided to rule out” placing adverts on some of its podcasts for UK listeners on sites such as Apple and Spotify.

Last year, the corporation revealed it planned to put ads in some of its podcasts on commercial platforms to “generate more revenue to support the BBC”.

But some of Britain’s biggest media companies objected – including ITV, Sky, commercial radio giants Bauer and Global, and Gary Lineker’s production company Goalhanger – with a joint letter to the government warning that the move would be “disastrous” for the UK podcast market.

The BBC said: “We have listened to feedback and having considered the options carefully, we have decided to rule out placing adverts around BBC licence-fee funded programmes on third party podcast platforms in the UK.”

A spokesperson added: “We will continue to support the audio sector and the wider market, investing in the best ideas and developing production capabilities across the UK.”

Under the plan, adverts would not have been placed in shows on the corporation’s own audio platform, BBC Sounds.

The letter sent by the media companies to the government last May said: “Forcing users to migrate to BBC Sounds if they want to hear content ad-free also has the impact of putting BBC Sounds at a distinct advantage as a platform, having an unfair competitive advantage when it comes to competition between listening platforms.”

It added: “These changes are highly likely to have a significant adverse impact on fair and effective competition in the UK podcast market.”

Podcast advertising was worth £76m in 2022, it said, compared with the BBC’s income of £5.7bn.

The BBC’s plan for adverts on podcasts, listed in the 2024/2025 annual plan, had said it would “assess this proposal for compliance with our regulatory obligations”.

The corporation currently gets most of its income from the licence fee, which costs £169.50 a year.

BBC Studios sells ads on BBC podcasts outside the UK.

When the plan to do the same in the UK was announced a year ago, the BBC said it would “generate more revenue to support the BBC, licence-fee payers our suppliers and rights holders”.

Last year, director general Tim Davie said the broadcaster’s annual savings target would rise to £700m a year by 2028.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has started negotiations with the BBC about the corporation’s funding after its current royal charter expires in 2027.

The charter, drawn up by the government, sets out the terms and purposes of the BBC’s existence and normally lasts for about a decade.

In January, Nandy ruled out funding the BBC from taxes if the licence fee was to be abolished.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport declined to comment on the BBC’s podcast decision.

A huge earthquake has hit central Myanmar.

The magnitude-7.7 tremor was felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

Hundreds are feared dead, although it is difficult to obtain accurate information.

Here is what we know so far.

The earthquake’s epicentre was located 16km (10 miles) north-west of Myanmar’s city Sagaing, at a depth of 10km (16 miles), the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

This is near the city of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city with a population of about 1.5 million people, and about 100km north of the capital Nay Pyi Taw.

In Myanmar, there are reports of roads buckling in the capital in addition to damage to buildings across the country.

Strong tremors were also felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

Eighty-one construction workers are missing after an unfinished high-rise building collapsed hundreds of miles away from the epicentre, in the Thai capital Bangkok.

A video also showed a rooftop pool in Bangkok spilling over the sides of a swaying building.

It may be a while before official casualty figures become known, but a member of a rescue team based in Mandalay has told the BBC that the number of deaths there “is at least in the hundreds”.

“That’s all we can say right now because the rescue efforts are ongoing,” they added.

Getting information out of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is difficult.

Myanmar has been ruled by a military junta since a coup in 2021, making access to information problematic.

The state controls almost all local radio, television, print and online media. Internet use is also restricted.

Mobile lines in the affected areas have been patchy since the quake struck, but tens of thousands of people also live without electricity, making it tough for the BBC to communicate with individuals on the ground.

Foreign journalists are also rarely allowed to enter officially due to a lack of press freedom.

The Earth’s crust is made up of separate bits, called plates, that nestle alongside each other.

These plates often try to move but are prevented by the friction of rubbing up against an adjoining one.

But sometimes the pressure builds until one plate suddenly jerks across, causing the surface to move.

They are measured on a scale called the Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw). This has replaced the better known Richter scale, now considered outdated and less accurate.

The number attributed to an earthquake represents a combination of the distance the fault line has moved and the force that moved it.

A tremor of 2.5 or less usually cannot be felt, but can be detected by instruments. Quakes of up to five are felt and cause minor damage. The Myanmar earthquake at 7.7 is classified as major and usually causes serious damage, as it has in this instance.

Anything above 8.0 causes catastrophic damage and can totally destroy communities at its centre.

Piles of papers containing confidential military information have been found scattered along a city street.

They include soldiers’ ranks, emails, shift patterns and weapon issue details, and information which appears to relate to accessing weapons storage and an intruder detection system.

The documents were discovered spilling out of a black bin bag in the Scotswood area of Newcastle by a football fan on 16 March and, according to information security consultant Gary Hibberd, posed a “significant” threat to individuals named in them.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was looking into the matter “urgently” and was conducting an internal investigation.

Downing Street said it could not comment on “any specifics” while the Army’s investigation was taking place.

“But you can expect that appropriate action will be taken in response to any potential information breach,” a spokesperson said.

The papers appear to be connected to British Army regiments and barracks at Catterick Garrison.

One document was headed “armoury keys and hold IDS codes”, which the BBC understands relates to accessing an armoury – a storage area for weapons and ammunition – and an intruder detection system.

Another was footnoted with the words “official – sensitive” which, according to government guidance, can in some cases mean the information could lead to a “threat to life” if compromised.

Information contained in the dumped documents ranged from general medical advice to ingredients order sheets, along with people’s ID numbers and email addresses.

The papers were discovered by Mike Gibbard, from Gateshead, as he parked his car before heading to a fanzone to watch Newcastle United’s Wembley win over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup Final.

“I peered down and started to see names on bits of papers, and numbers, and I thought ‘what’s that?’,” he said.

The papers were piled up against a wall in a black bag and “in the road, underneath cars, spread all the way up the road”.

“I found a lot more on the other side of the road that wasn’t in a bag.”

Mr Gibbard said he asked his wife: “Why is it here? This shouldn’t be here, anyone could pick it up.”

Describing the find as “crazy”, he said he saw “details of the perimeter, the patrol, checking weapons in and out, requests for leave, mobile phone numbers, high ranking officers”.

Gary Hibberd, an information security consultant with 35 years’ experience, said the documents posed a “significant” threat to those individuals named.

“They could be easily identified through social media, they could potentially be coerced, they could be harassed,” he said.

Government guidance on sensitive information reveals such documents could, in the wrong hands, lead to “moderate, short term damage” to UK or allied forces’ military operations.

It adds: “However, in some exceptional circumstances, the compromise of more sensitive official information could lead to a threat to life.”

All such documents should be disposed of in a “burn bag” or by shredding in an approved machine.

Mr Gibbard reported the find to Northumbria Police.

A spokesperson confirmed the force “received a report that potentially confidential documents had been found on Railway Street in the Scotswood area of Newcastle”.

“The documents have now been handed to the Ministry of Defence.”

An MoD spokesperson said: “We are looking into this urgently and the matter is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation.”

As the sun sets over Bangkok, hundreds of rescue workers desperately search for survivors at the collapsed 30-storey skyscraper on a construction site in Thailand’s capital.

Rescuers are trying to reach dozens of workers trapped in the rubble after the skyscraper collapsed.

Standing on a bridge a short distance from the scene, under the orange glow of the sky, a group of reporters, including myself, look on in disbelief at the three-storey-high piles of concrete.

Twisted wire and metal jut out.

Even as more professional rescue and military teams arrive and floodlights are erected, there seems little chance of finding many survivors.

A shallow magnitude 7.7 quake hit central Myanmar and was followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.4 aftershock, toppling buildings and rupturing roads.

Here, across the border in Thailand, the shocks and devastation were also felt. Residents struggle to respond to a natural disaster few are accustomed to.

I was at my house when the shakes started and it was unlike anything I had felt before.

The collapsed building, belonging to the national audit office, was under construction for three years at a cost of more than two billion Thai baht (£45m) – now reduced to rubble.

White tents have been erected at the perimeter as rescuers in bright yellow hard hats work to free an estimated 81 people still trapped beneath the collapsed skyscraper.

Thai Defence Minister Phumtham Wechachai told reporters three people had been confirmed dead. A little under an hour ago, I saw two covered bodies being carried to the tents.

The road next to the building is full of fire engines, ambulances and other rescue vehicles. Curious civilians have joined us on the bridge, watching in an attempt to understand what is happening.

Heavy machinery is beginning to arrive including a large crane. Rescuers say they need them to remove the debris before they can start searching for the missing.

I arrived less than an hour after the collapse to find construction workers covered in dust, stunned by what they had just survived.

Adisorn Kamphasorn had been bringing materials down from the sixth floor when he suddenly felt the tremor. The 18-year-old looked up the stairwell and saw a crane shaking.

He told me: “I knew it was about to be bad. I ran. It took one minute for it to collapse. All of a sudden, there was smoke everywhere and everything went black. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t have a mask.”

He had not spoken to his family yet because he lost his phone in the chaos, saying he had never experienced anything like it in his life. He thought he was going to die.

The construction workers tell me they were a mixture of Thai and Burmese.

Nukul Khemutha, 30, was working on the fifth floor when he felt the tremors. He looked up and saw all the floors sinking, holes forming.

He said one of his colleagues had just gone up to the tenth floor to use the bathroom and they are still waiting for news of his whereabouts. He told me: “We were all just screaming ‘run’ and telling each other to hold hands and run together.”

When I spoke to them, they sat there smoking, trying to calm down. They looked sad. None of the survivors had received medical help, as all the attention was focused on those still trapped.

As the sound of drilling intensifies, rescue workers face a long night ahead.

Additional reporting by Rachel Hagan in London

The wife of a woman who was stabbed to death on a beach in Bournemouth has said she wants her killer to know the pain he has caused.

Criminology student Nasen Saadi, 21, has been jailed for life with a minimum of 39 years for the murder of Amie Gray and attempted murder of Leanne Miles.

The friends, who were aged 34 and 38 and not known to Saadi, were attacked on Durley Chine Beach last May.

Wanting to keep her wife’s memory alive, Sian Gray exclusively told the BBC: “She didn’t die on that beach, she still lives on.”

Saadi was described in court as a “social misfit” with a “grievance against women” and committed his crimes “to feel powerful”.

The criminology student at the University of Greenwich had collected knives and researched locations to carry out the killing, Winchester Crown Court heard.

He even asked course lecturers questions on how to get away with murder.

On the night of the attack, the two women were sitting on the sand where they had lit a fire and were enjoying the full moon.

CCTV footage showed Saadi stepping on to the beach, before repeatedly stabbing the pair and leaving them to bleed to death.

Ms Miles survived despite being taken to hospital with 20 knife wounds, mainly to her back.

But Ms Gray, a football coach from Poole, Dorset, had been stabbed in the heart and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Judge Mrs Justice Cutts told Winchester Crown Court that Saadi had chosen to deny his guilt because he wanted the “notoriety of a trial” and had a “complete lack of remorse”.

She added: “It seems you have felt humiliated and rejected for any advances you have made towards girls which has led over time to a deeply-suppressed rage towards society and women in particular.”

Sian Gray described her wife as a strong, beautiful woman with an infectious laugh.

“She would literally walk in, do a silly little dance and do a couple of jokes,” she said.

Sian sat in the public gallery every day during the murder trial last December at Winchester Crown Court.

“For me, him getting the justice he deserves is important,” she explained.

“I wanted to see him and him to look at me, to know the pain that he’s caused and the lives that he’s ruined.

“I felt like I was representing her, like I was standing up to him, not letting her die.”

She said Amie’s death still did not feel real, but she was taking each day as it came.

“I don’t want hate to consume me,” she added.

“Amie wouldn’t want us to stop our lives or be living in the shadows.”

The trial revealed Saadi had travelled from his home in Croydon to the Travelodge hotel in Bournemouth on 21 May.

He scouted the area before moving to the Silver How Hotel on 23 May, and attacking his victims the following night.

No weapon, clothing or DNA evidence was recovered during Dorset Police’s investigation.

It was also discovered that Saadi had an interest in true crime and had bought multiple knives online.

He denied charges of murder and attempted murder and claimed “mistaken identity” in a police interview.

But a jury found him guilty on both counts after a nine-day trial.

He previously pleaded guilty to failing to give police access to his mobile phone.

He did not give evidence in court.