There were times, before Israeli airstrikes on Gaza shattered the two-month-old cease-fire on March 18, when Huda Abu Teir and her family could almost believe things might go back to normal.

After fleeing from their home to a shelter for displaced people, and then to a tent, another shelter and on to another encampment during 15 months of war — six or seven displacements in all — they had returned to their house in Abasan al-Kabira, in southeastern Gaza, where they lived with Huda’s grandparents and uncles.

Back at home a few weeks ago, Huda, 19, threw a pizza party for her cousins, said one cousin, Fatma al-Shawwaf, 20. The other girls teased Huda: Shouldn’t you be studying? Huda, who was set on becoming a nurse, always seemed to be studying. But Huda laughingly retorted that she liked having fun, too.

The day before Israeli airstrikes resumed, Huda asked her Uncle Nour, who taught technology, if he could help her go over the material for her high school exams. He promised her a study session the next evening, he said.

But around midnight, Huda’s brother Abdullah, 15, heard an explosion. “What was that?” he screamed to his father, who had no time to answer before the next blast, this time over their heads and under their feet all at once.

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Only one building in Bangkok fell during the earthquake on Friday that rocked Myanmar, hundreds of miles away. Recovery efforts continue with at least 15 people killed and dozens still missing. Determining the cause could take months.

But interviews with workers who had been on the site, together with early official findings, highlighted potential problems with construction design and quality.

At the center of the scrutiny is China Railway 10th Engineering Group, a Chinese state-owned company with about a dozen other projects in Thailand and whose contractors tried to remove documents from the site after the disaster.

Behind that Chinese company is its parent, China Railway Group — a Chinese infrastructure giant with soaring debt, a hunger for new projects and subsidiaries facing accusations of weak safety in several countries.

Workers in Bangkok told The New York Times that China Railway 10th, which was part of a consortium constructing the building, underpaid contractors who turned to lower quality materials, and used columns narrower than usual.

Thai officials testing twisted metal from the ruins said they found substandard steel bars — made by a Thai factory with Chinese owners that the authorities had shut down in December.

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Myanmar’s military fired on a Chinese Red Cross convoy trying to deliver food and medicine to desperate survivors of the massive earthquake in Myanmar, highlighting the dangers aid groups face from the country’s ongoing civil war.

The military said Wednesday that its soldiers had opened fire on vehicles carrying relief supplies in the war-torn northern Shan State after the convoy had failed to notify them of its presence in advance. Armed rebel groups also said the military has launched scores of airstrikes since Friday’s 7.7-magnitude temblor, which killed at least 2,700, killing dozens of civilians.

Although the shadow government in exile, known as the National Unity Government, and an alliance of three rebel groups announced cease-fires in the wake of the earthquake, the military, which seized power in a coup four years ago, has indicated that it will not stop hostilities. The fierce civil war had already caused widespread suffering before the earthquake, which killed at least 2,700 and left millions of people with little food and water.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the chief of Myanmar’s junta, said in a statement on Tuesday night that military operations will continue as “necessary protective measures” despite the earthquake.

“There’s nothing necessary nor protective about attacking people trying to help people,” said Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar. “Continuing to launch military offenses is just outrageous.”

On Tuesday around 9.30 p.m., the military fired at a Chinese Red Cross convoy near Ummati village in northern Shan State, according to Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesman for Myanmar’s military.

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Even in a frequently fogbound port city along the Atlantic Ocean, the billowing clouds of steam rising from Canada’s largest oil refinery over Saint John, New Brunswick, are impossible to miss.

On a ridge overlooking the refinery sit six enormous tanks, each containing one million barrels of crude oil. Letters painted in dark blue spell “Irving,” the family whose businesses dominate not only Saint John, but most of New Brunswick.

The larger of the Irvings’ two local paper mills looms above the Saint John River like a medieval fortress. Irving-owned railway tracks crisscross the city, linking smaller factories owned by the family to ports under Irving control. Irving-owned building-supply stores and gas stations dot the streets in this city of 78,000 people, where park signs honor Irving contributions to their upkeep.