At least 144 killed as rescue efforts continue
Rebecca Ratcliffe
Myanmar’s junta chief says at least 144 people have been killed and 732 injured by a major earthquake that struck the country and also brought down a high-rise building under construction in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Min Aung Hlaing said he expected the toll to rise and he was inviting “any country, any organisation” to help with relief efforts – a rare request from the isolated junta.
The powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar at 1.20pm local time at a depth of 10km (6.2 miles). Its epicentre was about 17.2km from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city.
In Thailand, three people were killed when a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok collapsed. Rescuers are searching for another 81 people trapped in the rubble.
On the Myanmar side of the border, witnesses and local media said people had been killed in the city of Mandalay and the towns Toungoo and Aungban. Hundreds of casualties were taken to a hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, with injured people being treated outside because of damage to the building.
The scale of the damage in Myanmar is yet to become clear, though social media footage emerging from central regions has shown multiple buildings collapsed or damaged.
Key events
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At least 144 killed as rescue efforts continue
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Summary of the day so far
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At least 144 people killed in Myanmar by earthquake, state media reports
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Eight people confirmed dead in Bangkok, says city governor
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World Health Organization triggers emergency system for ‘huge’ Myanmar earthquake
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At least 20 people have died after arriving at Myanmar hospital, says doctor
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‘Everything was swaying – then I realised it was the building’: Witness recalls escape from 28th floor of Bangkok building
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EU ‘ready’ to provide support after earthquake rocks Myanmar and Thailand
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Thai defence minister says 90 missing and three dead at the site of collapsed high-rise
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Three confirmed dead in Bangkok after earthquake, governor says
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Three people reported dead in Taungoo, Myanmar
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Bangkok governor orders immediate establishment of earthquake response command centre
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Eight people killed after building collapse in Mandalay, eyewitness tells Guardian
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At least two people dead and ‘unknown number’ under Bangkok skyscraper rubble, say Thai emergency responders
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Myanmar junta asks for international aid after quake as six regions declare state of emergency
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Thai capital declared disaster area after quake, city hall says
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One person killed in skyscraper collapse in Bangkok, authorities confirm
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State of emergency declared in Bangkok after quake, says Thai PM
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Police and medics say 43 trapped as Bangkok skyscraper collapses
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‘A five-storey building collapsed in front of my eyes’
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Strong, shallow earthquake strikes Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand
Donald Trump has told Reuters that he has spoken with officials in Myanmar about the earthquake and that his administration would be providing some form of assistance.
“We’re going to be helping,” he told reporters at the White House.
A British tourist on holiday in Bangkok has told PA Media she initially thought the shaking was due to effects from the film she was watching.
Mandy Tang, 38, from London, told PA: “I was watching a film called The Red Envelope. It happened to be quite an action-packed scene when the shake happened, so I initially thought it could have been Imax effects.
“I looked around and none of the local audience left their seats. However, my Taiwanese friend insisted it’s an earthquake, so I walked out of the theatre with her, and we met the security guards coming to evacuate us just outside the theatre.
“We could see the doors were opening and closing, all the chairs were shaking.”
Tang said she was trying to get a car back to her hotel, adding: “Basically I’m tired and I’m trying to get back.
“It was quite nerve-racking, I’ve never experienced such a strong shake. It is quite scary.”
PA Media reporters have been talking to people who experienced the earthquake in Bangkok.
A Scottish expat told the news agency “blood rushed to his head” as an earthquake shook his apartment building and forced him to evacuate his home.
Alex MacGregor, a 36 year-old PR consultant who has been living in the Thai capital for the last six months, was working from home and waiting for the delivery of his lunch when the tremors began at about 1.30pm local time.
“I was just waiting for the driver to come with my food and I look in the pool and noticed the water started to kind of lap at the edges … but then it started to get violent,” said MacGregor, who is originally from Inverness.
“All of a sudden I started feeling faint, like that kind of blood rushing to the head feeling, and I was like: ‘Am I ill here, or what’s going on?’
“Then I looked up the other condo, which is a really high skyscraper and I saw their pool water coming over the sides and that’s when I knew it was an earthquake.
“It’s a weird sensation, you’re seeing a lot of things happen in slow motion around you… I actually went and sat down because I was feeling unsteady on my feet.”
Despite the tremors, MacGregor said people were “remarkably calm” as an alarm went off in his building telling all occupants to evacuate.
“Shortly after I left my condo area to come to a coffeeshop… all the shops here in this eastern part of Bangkok were closed, so people were lining the streets,” he said.
“We knew there was going to be an aftershock, so I’ve made my way to an outdoor space and there’s a lot of people just sitting out here working on their laptops generally being chill.
“The Thai people are really friendly people, very chill – the last people that are going to panic in this kind of situation.”
Living in the “fairly residential” On Nut in eastern Bangkok, MacGregor said he thought the worst of the earthquake affected other areas of the city.
The US Agency for International Development will send some teams to Thailand to help with recovery efforts, a source familiar with the matter has told Reuters.
Last month, the Trump administration said it was eliminating more than 90% of the agency’s foreign aid contracts and $60bn in overall US assistance around the world. All USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programmes, were placed on administrative leave globally.
The earthquake was felt in China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and caused damage and injuries in the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports.
Videos that one outlet said were shot by 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 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Ruili, was so strong that people couldn’t stand, one resident told The Paper, an online media outlet.
Here are some more of the latest photos from the earthquake:
At least 144 killed as rescue efforts continue
Rebecca Ratcliffe
Myanmar’s junta chief says at least 144 people have been killed and 732 injured by a major earthquake that struck the country and also brought down a high-rise building under construction in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Min Aung Hlaing said he expected the toll to rise and he was inviting “any country, any organisation” to help with relief efforts – a rare request from the isolated junta.
The powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar at 1.20pm local time at a depth of 10km (6.2 miles). Its epicentre was about 17.2km from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city.
In Thailand, three people were killed when a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok collapsed. Rescuers are searching for another 81 people trapped in the rubble.
On the Myanmar side of the border, witnesses and local media said people had been killed in the city of Mandalay and the towns Toungoo and Aungban. Hundreds of casualties were taken to a hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, with injured people being treated outside because of damage to the building.
The scale of the damage in Myanmar is yet to become clear, though social media footage emerging from central regions has shown multiple buildings collapsed or damaged.
Here is an updated map showing the impact of the earthquake:
The United Nations is mobilising in Southeast Asia to help those in need, UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Friday after a powerful earthquake centered in Myanmar rocked the region.
“The government of Myanmar has asked for international support and our team in Myanmar is already in contact in order to fully mobilise our resources in the region to support the people of Myanmar,” Guterres said.
“But of course there are other countries impacted. The epicenter is in Myanmar, and Myanmar is the weakest country in this present situation,” he added.
Summary of the day so far
It has just gone 9.30pm in Mandalay, Myanmar, and 10pm in Bangkok, Thailand. Here is what we know so far after an earthquake with a 7.7 magnitude hit central Myanmar on Friday.
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A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand on Friday, destroying buildings, a bridge and a dam. The quake, with an epicenter near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, struck at midday and was followed by a strong 6.4 magnitude aftershock. Tremors were also felt in China’s south-west Yunnan province, according to Beijing’s quake agency.
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Thai authorities declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Friday, while Bangkok city hall said on Friday that Thailand’s capital had been declared a disaster area.
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Eight people are confirmed to have been killed in Bangkok, the city’s governor Chadchart Sittipunt has said. This includes seven people killed at the construction site of the collapsed high-rise, where rescuers are still scrambling to save dozens of construction workers feared trapped under the rubble. Police are using drones to detect body heat in the search for survivors, and rescue dogs have also been deployed, Thai media reported. Thailand’s defence minister said 90 people were missing at the site of the high-rise building under construction that collapsed.
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At least 144 people in Myanmar have been killed and 732 injured by a major earthquake that struck the country on Friday, state-run MRTV said on the Telegram messaging app on Friday. There have been seperate reports coming through on Friday from eyewitnesses and doctors but no official death toll has been shared at the time of writing.
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The full extent of death, injury and destruction as a result of the earthquake was not immediately clear – particularly in Myanmar. It is embroiled in a civil war and information is tightly controlled. It is expected that the number of dead and injured will rise as rescue operations continue.
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Bangkok’s governor Chadchart Sittipunt ordered the immediate establishment of an earthquake response command centre, and instructed all districts and hospitals to assess damages. Police officers have also been deployed to evacuate people from unsafe buildings and manage traffic. Prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra called an emergency meeting to assess the impact of the quake.
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Witnesses described evacuating swaying buildings with plaster raining down on them, while images showed damaged roads with large cracks. Video footage of a Bangkok high-rise showed water from a pool sloshing over the side of it.
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Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for Myanmar’s military junta to allow humanitarian access. Earlier in the day, the junta made a rare call for international help as it declared a state of emergency across six regions.
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The Red Cross shared its concerns for the state of large scale dams. “Public infrastructure has been damaged including roads, bridges and public buildings. We currently have concerns for large scale dams that people are watching to see the conditions of them”, Marie Manrique, programme coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross said to reporters in Geneva, via video link from Yangon.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) is readying medical supplies and said it had triggered its emergency management system in response to Friday’s “huge” earthquake in Myanmar. It added that it was mobilising its logistics hub in Dubai to prepare trauma injury supplies.
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Zin Mar Aung, the top diplomat of the Myanmar’s parallel national unity government, said troops from the anti-junta militias, known as the people’s defence forces, would be providing humanitarian help. “It’s very serious, we need humanitarian and technical assistance from the international community,” Zin Mar Aung said in a phone interview, adding communications was a major challenge, including internet restrictions imposed by the junta in a hard-hit area.
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EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday the 27-country bloc stood ready to help after a strong, deadly earthquake hit Myanmar and Thailand. France echoed the offer of support, adding that its diplomatic premises in the Thai capital had been evacuated.
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UK foreign secretary David Lammy advised British nationals in Myanmar and in Thailand to follow government advice. Earlier today, the UK Foreign Office warned “there may be several strong after-shocks” after the quake.
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Pope Francis offered his prayers for the victims of the powerful earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand, the Vatican press office said. In a telegram published by the Vatican, Francis said he was “deeply saddened by the loss of life and widespread devastation” caused by the earthquake.