The five young doctors took up their mission together: defying Myanmar’s junta to treat the wounded through the coup and deadly military crackdown four years ago. Since then, each continued supporting the democratic cause.

       For Dr. Min, 32, that meant fleeing to the jungle to offer battlefield triage to rebel forces who were fighting the army. But when the earthquake last week devastated his home city, Mandalay, he knew he had to cross combat zones to check on his family and help his friend group of doctors again.

       “I prayed the whole way back,” he said.

       Dr. Min returned in time to watch his four friends’ bodies being pulled from the rubble of a 12-story condominium, the stench of mass death simmering in the tropical heat.

       It’s a measure of Myanmar’s collapse that the generals have come to see health care providers as enemies of the state. The junta has closed at least seven private hospitals in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, that were seen as sympathetic to the resistance. It has jailed doctors and nurses.

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       Nevertheless, Dr. Min joined a group of medical volunteers and rushed to the stricken city. Residents were clawing through the debris with bare hands, spurred by the cries and then the whispers of the trapped. Eventually, the sounds ceased. One day, a mother and her 4-month old daughter were pulled out alive. Dr. Min administered first aid. The baby died.

       At the 12-story condo, there were only bodies, Dr. Min said, including the four friends who had joined him in defying the coup.

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