On Saturday, rescuers combed through the debris of collapsed buildings in a last-ditch effort to find survivors after the massive earthquake that struck Myanmar and Thailand claimed more than 1,000 lives.
A shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake occurred in the early afternoon northwest of Sagaing, in central Myanmar. A 6.7-magnitude aftershock occurred minutes later.
Buildings, bridges, and highways were all demolished by the earthquake in large parts of Myanmar. Mandalay, the nation’s second-largest city and home to over 1.7 million people, saw the most damage.
Thar Aye, 68, a Mandalay resident, stated, “We need aid. We don’t have enough of anything.”
According to a statement from the junta, at least 1,007 people were killed, nearly 2,400 were injured, and 30 more were reported missing in Myanmar. There have been perhaps 10 further verified deaths in Bangkok.
However, the isolated military-ruled state is just now beginning to reveal the full extent of the disaster due to severely hampered communications, and the death toll is predicted to increase dramatically.
A Red Cross source told AFP on Saturday that over 90 people might be trapped in the crushed remnants of one Mandalay apartment tower.
At the Sky Villa Condominium complex, where multiple stories of the structure were stacked on top of one another, rescuers laboured to liberate victims.
Credit: ABS-CBN
– ‘Started shaking’ –
Hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the epicentre, the tremors were strong enough to seriously damage buildings around Bangkok, making this the largest earthquake to strike Myanmar in decades, according to scientists.
AFP reporters discovered a centuries-old Buddhist pagoda in Mandalay that had been destroyed.
According to a soldier manning a checkpoint on the road outside the pagoda, “It started shaking, then it started getting serious.”
In addition, the monastery fell. We pulled some individuals out and carried them to the hospital; one monk passed away, and several others were hurt.
Journalists were turned away by Mandalay Airport security.
One said, “It has been closed since yesterday. The ceiling collapsed, but no one was hurt.”
Airport damage would make relief operations more difficult in a nation whose healthcare system and rescue services have already been severely damaged by a four-year civil conflict that was started by a military coup in 2021.
