By DAVID RISING and JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI, Related Press
BANGKOK (AP) — A strong earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand on Friday, destroying buildings, a bridge and a dam. No less than 144 individuals had been killed in Myanmar, the place images and video from two hard-hit cities confirmed intensive injury. No less than 10 died within the Thai capital, the place a high-rise beneath development collapsed.
The complete extent of demise, harm and destruction was not instantly clear — significantly in Myanmar, one of many world’s poorest international locations. It’s embroiled in a civil conflict, and data is tightly managed.
“The demise toll and accidents are anticipated to rise,” the pinnacle of Myanmar’s navy authorities, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing mentioned as he introduced on tv that no less than 144 individuals had been killed and 730 others had been injured in his nation.
In Thailand, Bangkok metropolis authorities mentioned 10 individuals had been killed, 16 injured and 101 lacking from three development websites, together with the high-rise.
The 7.7 magnitude quake struck at noon, with an epicenter close to Mandalay, Myanmar ‘s second-largest metropolis. Aftershocks adopted, one in all them measuring a robust 6.4 magnitude.
Images from Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, confirmed rescue crews pulling victims from the rubble of a number of buildings used to deal with civil servants.
Myanmar’s authorities mentioned blood was in excessive demand within the hardest-hit areas. In a rustic the place prior governments typically have been sluggish to simply accept international support, Min Aung Hlaing mentioned Myanmar was prepared to simply accept help.
On the United Nations, Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres mentioned the world physique is mobilizing to reply to Myanmar’s attraction for worldwide assist.
However as pictures circulated of buckled and cracked roads, a collapsed bridge and a burst dam, there have been considerations about how rescuers would even attain some areas in a rustic already enduring a humanitarian disaster.
“We concern it could be weeks earlier than we perceive the total extent of destruction brought on by this earthquake,” mentioned Mohammed Riyas, the Worldwide Rescue Committee’s Myanmar director.
Bridge and monastery collapse and dam bursts in Myanmar
In Mandalay, the earthquake reportedly introduced down a number of buildings, together with the Ma Soe Yane monastery, one of many largest within the metropolis, and broken the previous royal palace. A video posted on-line confirmed robed monks on the street, capturing their very own video of the multistory monastery earlier than it all of a sudden fell into the bottom. It was not instantly clear whether or not anybody was harmed.
Christian Assist mentioned its companions and colleagues on the bottom reported {that a} dam burst within the metropolis, inflicting water ranges to rise within the lowland areas.
Within the Sagaing area simply southwest of the town, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed, and a few sections of the freeway connecting Mandalay and Myanmar’s largest metropolis, Yangon, had been additionally broken.
Yangon residents rushed out of their properties when the quake struck. In Naypyitaw, some properties stood partly crumbled, whereas rescuers heaved away bricks from the piles of particles. An injured man reclined on a wheeled stretcher, whereas one other man fanned him within the warmth.
In a rustic the place many individuals already had been struggling, “this catastrophe can have left individuals devastated,” mentioned Julie Mehigan, who oversees Christian Assist’s work in Asia, the Center East and Europe.
“Even earlier than this heartbreaking earthquake, we all know battle and displacement has left numerous individuals in actual want,” Mehigan mentioned.
Myanmar’s navy seized energy from the elected authorities of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, and is now concerned in a bloody civil conflict with long-established militias and newly fashioned pro-democracy ones.
Authorities forces have misplaced management of a lot of Myanmar, and lots of locations are extremely harmful or just unimaginable for support teams to succeed in. Greater than 3 million individuals have been displaced by the combating and almost 20 million are in want, based on the United Nations.
A lady reacts as she watches rescuers on the website of a high-rise constructing beneath development that collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Wason Wanichakorn)
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A lady reacts as she watches rescuers on the website of a high-rise constructing beneath development that collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Wason Wanichakorn)
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Bangkok constructing collapsed in a cloud of mud
In Thailand, a 33-story constructing beneath development crumpled right into a cloud of mud close to Bangkok’s well-liked Chatuchak market, and onlookers might be seen screaming and working in a video posted on social media. Autos on a close-by freeway got here to a cease.
Sirens blared throughout the Thai capital’s downtown as a rescuers streamed to the wreckage. Above them, shredded metal and damaged concrete blocks, some stacked like pancakes, rose in a towering heap. Injured individuals had been rushed away on gurneys, and hospital beds had been additionally wheeled exterior onto a sidewalk.
“It’s an excellent tragedy,” Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit mentioned after viewing the positioning, including that there was hope that there have been nonetheless survivors.
The town’s elevated fast transit system and subway shut down.
Whereas the world is liable to earthquakes, they’re often not so highly effective and infrequently are felt within the Thai capital. The larger metropolitan space is dwelling to greater than 17 million individuals, lots of whom dwell in high-rise residences.
Voranoot Thirawat, a lawyer working in central Bangkok, mentioned her first indication that one thing was incorrect got here when she noticed a light-weight swinging forwards and backwards. Then she heard the constructing creaking, and he or she and her colleagues fled down 12 flights of stairs.
“In my lifetime, there was no earthquake like this in Bangkok,” she mentioned.
Fraser Morton, a vacationer from Scotland, was in one in all Bangkok’s many malls when the quake struck.
“Rapidly, the entire constructing started to maneuver. Instantly, there was screaming and a number of panic,” he mentioned. Some individuals fled down upward-moving escalators, he mentioned.
Close by, Paul Vincent, a vacationer visiting from England, recalled seeing a high-rise constructing swaying, water falling from a rooftop pool and other people crying within the streets.
The U.S. Geological Survey and Germany’s GFZ heart for geosciences mentioned the earthquake was a shallow 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), based on preliminary studies. Shallower earthquakes are likely to trigger extra injury.
Accidents reported in China
To the northeast, the earthquake was felt in China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and induced injury and accidents within the metropolis of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, based on Chinese language media studies.
Movies that one outlet mentioned had been shot by an individual in Ruili confirmed constructing particles littering a avenue and an individual being wheeled in a stretcher towards an ambulance.
The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese language metropolis about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Ruili, was so sturdy that individuals couldn’t stand, one resident advised The Paper, a web-based media outlet.
Adam Schreck, Haruka Naga, Jerry Harmer, Grant Peck and Penny Wang in Bangkok, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Edith M. Lederer on the United Nations and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
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