Images of buckled and cracked roads in Mandalay and damaged highways as well as the collapse of a bridge and dam raised further concerns about how rescuers would even reach some areas in a country already enduring a widespread humanitarian crisis.
A damaged building in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw.Credit: AP
“We fear it may be weeks before we understand the full extent of destruction caused by this earthquake,” said Mohammed Riyas, the International Rescue Committee’s Myanmar director.
Near Bangkok’s popular Chatuchak market, a 33-storey building under construction, with a crane on top, crumpled into a cloud of dust, and onlookers could be seen screaming and running in a video posted on social media.
Myanmar’s English-language state newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar published a photo showing wreckage of a sign that read “EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT”, which the caption said was part of the capital’s main 1000-bed hospital.
The USGS and Germany’s GFZ centre for geosciences said the earthquake was a shallow 10 kilometres, according to preliminary reports. Shallower earthquakes tend to cause more damage.
Crane-topped building collapses in cloud of dust
In Bangkok, at least three people were killed in the building collapse and 90 were missing, according to Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai. He offered no more details about the ongoing rescue efforts but first responders said that seven people had been rescued so far from the area.
Rescuers work at the site a high-rise building under construction that collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok on Friday.Credit: AP
At least two of the dead were construction workers who were killed by falling rubble or debris, rescue worker Songwut Wangpon told reporters. The building was being built to house the government auditor-general’s department and had only recently celebrated the completion of the top floor.
Leading Thai newspaper Matichon reported the building was a project of a consortium, ITD-CREC, comprising the China Railway No. 10 company, a joint venture called PKW, and construction giant Italian-Thai Development.
The country’s largest construction company, Italian-Thai has been involved in many of Bangkok’s largest infrastructure and government projects, but is also facing a $US3 billion ($4.8 billion) debt crunch. It was also involved in the Rama II expressway, which collapsed while under construction earlier this month, killing six people.
Elsewhere, people in Bangkok evacuated from their buildings were cautioned to stay outside in case there were more aftershocks.
April Kanichawanakul, who works in an office building in Bangkok, initially didn’t even realise it was an earthquake, the first she’d ever experienced. “I just thought I was dizzy,” she said.
She and her colleagues ran downstairs from the 10th floor of their building and waited outside for a signal that it was safe to go back in.
Screaming and panic as buildings swayed
Bangkok’s city hall declared the city a disaster area to facilitate the response. The greater metropolitan area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments.
“All of a sudden the whole building began to move. Immediately there was screaming and a lot of panic,” said Fraser Morton, a tourist from Scotland, who was in one of Bangkok’s many malls.
“I just started walking calmly at first, but then the building started really moving, yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators.”
Like Morton, thousands of people poured into Benjasiri Park from nearby shopping malls, high rises and apartment buildings along Bangkok’s busy Sukhumvit Road.
Many were on phones trying to reach loved ones as others sought shade from the hot early afternoon sun.
Voranoot Thirawat, a lawyer working in central Bangkok, said her first indication that something was wrong came when she saw a light swinging back and forth. Then she heard the building creaking as it too moved back and forth.
She and her colleagues ran down 12 flights of stairs. “In my lifetime, there was no earthquake like this in Bangkok,” she said.
Paul Vincent, a tourist visiting from England, was at a streetside bar when the quake struck.
As he came onto the street himself, he said he saw a high-rise building swaying and water falling from a rooftop pool.
“There was people crying in the streets and, you know, the panic was horrendous really,” he said.
Bridge and monastery collapse and dam bursts in Myanmar
Myanmar’s government declared a state of emergency in six regions and states including the capital Naypyitaw and Mandalay. It was not clear what the declaration meant since the entire country has been under a state of emergency since 2021 when the junta took over in a military coup.
In Mandalay, the earthquake reportedly brought down multiple buildings, including the Ma Soe Yane monastery, one of the largest in the city, and damaged the former royal palace.
Myanmar’s military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, centre, visits earthquake victims in hospital. in Naypyitaw.Credit: Myanmar Military/AP
Meanwhile, Christian Aid said its partners and colleagues on the ground reported that a dam burst in the city, causing water levels to rise in the lowland areas in the area.
A video posted online showed robed monks in the street shooting video of the multistorey monastery before it suddenly fell into the ground. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was harmed.
In the Sagaing region just south-west of the city, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed, and some sections of the highway connecting Mandalay and Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, were also damaged.
The Red Cross said downed power lines added to challenges for their teams trying to reach several hard-hit areas.
Residents in Yangon rushed out of their homes when the quake struck. In the capital Naypyitaw, the quake damaged some homes and religious shrines, sending parts toppling to the ground.
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The military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, and is now involved in a bloody civil war with long-established militias and newly formed pro-democracy ones.
Government forces have lost control of much of Myanmar, and many places are incredibly dangerous to access or simply out of reach for aid groups. More than 3 million people have been displaced by the fighting and nearly 20 million are in need, according to the United Nations.
Injuries reported in China
To the north-east, the earthquake was felt in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in China and caused damage to houses and injuries in the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports.
Videos that one outlet said it had received from a person in Ruili showed building debris littering a street and a person being wheeled in a stretcher toward an ambulance.
The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese city about 100km north-east of Ruili, was so strong that people couldn’t stand, one resident told The Paper, an online media outlet.
AP