BANGKOK: A powerful earthquake centred in Myanmar rocked Southeast Asia on Friday, killing several people and causing extensive damage, with rescuers in Bangkok searching for 81 people in the rubble of a collapsed building.
At least three people were killed in the town of Taungoo in Myanmar when a mosque partially collapsed, witnesses said. Local media reported at least two people died and 20 were injured after a hotel collapsed in Aung Ban.
The ruling military in Myanmar did not give any numbers for dead and wounded. The diplomatic spokesman for the parallel National Unity Government that opposes the junta said the quake killed at least 12 people and more deaths were likely in the Mandalay area it hit.
Troops from the anti-junta militias, known as the People’s Defence Forces, would provide humanitarian help, Zin Mar Aung told Reuters.
In Thailand, the defence minister said rescuers were searching for 81 people trapped in the rubble of a skyscraper that was under construction and collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said three people were killed at the building site. He warned of possible aftershocks but urged people to be calm and said the situation was largely under control.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which struck at lunchtime, was of 7.7 magnitude and at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). The epicentre was about 17 km from Mandalay, which has a population of about 1.5 million.
The quake was followed by a powerful aftershock and several more moderate ones.
“We all ran out of the house as everything started shaking,” a Mandalay resident told Reuters. “I witnessed a five-storey building collapse in front of my eyes. Everyone in my town is out on the road and no one dares to go back inside buildings.”
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The quake caused the collapse of buildings in five cities and towns, as well as a railway bridge and a road bridge on the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway, Myanmar state media said. Images showed the destroyed Ava Bridge over the Irrawaddy River, its arches leaning into the water.
The quake will further stretch Myanmar’s ruling military, which is fighting against an armed uprising. The junta declared a state of emergency in multiple regions but provided no specifics of damage.
“The state will make inquiries on the situation quickly and conduct rescue operations along with providing humanitarian aid,” it said on Telegram.
The Red Cross said roads, bridges and buildings had been damaged in Myanmar, and there were concerns for the state of large dams.
Mandalay is Myanmar’s ancient royal capital and at the centre of the country’s Buddhist heartland.
A Mandalay resident said destruction stretched across the whole city, and one neighbourhood, Sein Pan, was on fire.
Roads were damaged, phone lines disrupted and there was no electricity, said the resident, who declined to be named.
Local media outlet Myanmar Now posted images showing a clock tower had collapsed, and part of the wall by Mandalay Palace was in ruins.
A witness, Htet Naing Oo, told Reuters that a tea shop had collapsed with several people trapped inside.
“We couldn’t go in,” she said. “The situation is very bad.”
At least three people died after a mosque in Taungoo partially collapsed, two witnesses said.
“We were saying prayers when the shaking started… Three died on the spot,” one said.
Local media reported a hotel in Aung Ban, in Shan state, crumbled into rubble, with the Democratic Voice of Burma reporting two people had died and 20 were trapped.
Army-run MRTV reported that the quake toppled buildings, crushed cars and left huge fissures on roads across the capital Naypyitaw.
Amnesty International said the earthquake could not have come at a worse time for Myanmar, given the number of displaced people, the existing need for relief aid, and cuts by the Trump administration to U.S. aid.
Restricted media access meant a clear picture of the extent of damage and loss might not emerge for some time, the group’s Myanmar researcher, Joe Freeman, said.
Since overthrowing the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, the military has struggled to run the country, leaving the economy and basic services like healthcare in tatters.
An armed opposition, comprising established ethnic armies and new resistance groups formed since the coup, has seized swathes of territory and driven the junta out of border areas, increasingly hemming it into the central lowlands.
The fighting has displaced more than three million people in Myanmar, with widespread food insecurity and over a third of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.
The country has also been hit by natural disasters in recent years, including Typhoon Yagi last year and Cyclone Mocha in 2023, and the internationally isolated junta has struggled to respond adequately.
Nyi Nyi Kyaw, a Myanmar academic at the University of Bristol, said the earthquake had struck “at a moment when Myanmar is at its most vulnerable … in decades”.
Civil society had largely fled following the coup and those community-based organisations that remained were unable to manage the disaster relief effort, he said.
“In essence, Myanmar is wholly unable to deal with the shock and its aftermath,” he said.
Office tower shakes in Bangkok
In the Thai capital, people ran out onto the streets in panic, many of them hotel guests in bathrobes and swimming costumes, as water cascaded down from an elevated pool at a luxury hotel, witnesses said.
The Stock Exchange of Thailand suspended all trading activities for the Friday afternoon session.
One office tower in downtown Bangkok swayed from side to side for at least two minutes, with doors and windows creaking loudly, witnesses said.
“At first, I didn’t realise (it was an earthquake),” office worker Varunyou Armarttayakul told Reuters.
“But then I saw the table shaking, and the chair and computer started swaying, too…Part of the ceiling even collapsed — that’s when I had to run out.”
China’s Xinhua news agency said strong tremors were felt in southwestern Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar, but there were no reports of casualties.
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