NAYPYIDAW: Rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings on Saturday (Mar 29) in a desperate search for survivors after a huge earthquake hit Myanmar and Thailand, killing more than 700 people.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar in the early afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The quake destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with severe damage reported in the second biggest city, Mandalay.
The death toll in Myanmar is now 694, with 1,670 people injured, the country’s ruling junta said in an update on Saturday.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had on Friday reported the preliminary death toll as 144, but warned that the number was likely to rise.
It was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in over a century, according to US geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre.
Rescuers in the Thai capital worked through the night searching for workers trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed, reduced in seconds to a pile of rubble and twisted metal by the force of the shaking.
