Violent earthquakes rock Thailand and Myanmar

BANGKOK (AP) — A strong earthquake rocked Myanmar on Friday, inflicting intensive injury throughout a large swath of one of many world’s poorest international locations and prompting officers to warn that the preliminary dying toll — above 140 — was more likely to develop within the days forward. In neighboring Thailand, a minimum of 10 died in Bangkok, the place a high-rise beneath development collapsed.

The complete extent of dying, damage and destruction was not instantly clear — significantly in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil conflict, and the place data is tightly managed.

“The dying toll and accidents are anticipated to rise,” the pinnacle of Myanmar’s army authorities, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing mentioned as he introduced on tv that a minimum of 144 folks had been killed and 730 others had been injured in his nation.

In Thailand, authorities in Bangkok mentioned 10 folks 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 among them measuring a powerful 6.4 magnitude.

Myanmar is in an energetic earthquake belt, although lots of the temblors occur in sparsely populated areas, not cities like these affected Friday. The U.S. Geological Survey, an American authorities science company, estimated that the dying toll might high 1,000.

In Mandalay, the earthquake reportedly introduced down a number of buildings, together with one of many metropolis’s largest monasteries. Images from the capital metropolis of 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 just accept international assist, Min Aung Hlaing mentioned Myanmar was prepared to just accept help. The United Nations allotted $5 million to start out aid efforts.

However amid pictures of buckled and cracked roads and stories of a collapsed bridge and a burst dam, there have been issues about how rescuers would even attain some areas in a rustic already enduring a humanitarian disaster.

“We worry it could be weeks earlier than we perceive the complete extent of destruction attributable to this earthquake,” mentioned Mohammed Riyas, the Worldwide Rescue Committee’s Myanmar director.

Bridge and monastery collapse and dam bursts in Myanmar

Myanmar’s English-language state newspaper, World New Gentle of Myanmar, mentioned 5 cities and cities had seen constructing collapses and two bridges had fallen, together with one on a key freeway between Mandalay and Yangon. A photograph on the newspaper’s web site confirmed wreckage of an indication that learn “EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT,” which the caption mentioned was a part of the capital’s predominant 1,000-bed hospital.

Elsewhere, video posted on-line confirmed robed monks in a Mandalay road, capturing their very own video of the multistory Ma Soe Yane monastery earlier than it abruptly fell into the bottom. It was not instantly clear whether or not anybody was harmed. Video additionally confirmed injury to the previous royal palace.

Christian Help 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.

Residents of Yangon, the nation’s largest metropolis, 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 could have left folks devastated,” mentioned Julie Mehigan, who oversees Christian Help’s work in Asia, the Center East and Europe.

“Even earlier than this heartbreaking earthquake, we all know battle and displacement has left numerous folks in actual want,” Mehigan mentioned.

Myanmar’s army 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 plenty of locations are extremely harmful or just unattainable for assist teams to achieve. Greater than 3 million folks have been displaced by the preventing and almost 20 million are in want, in response to the United Nations.

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 standard Chatuchak market, and onlookers could possibly be seen screaming and working in a video posted on social media. Automobiles 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 folks 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.

Whereas the world is liable to earthquakes, they hardly ever are felt within the Bangkok metropolitan space, residence to greater than 17 million folks. Many stay in high-rise flats.

Voranoot Thirawat, a lawyer working in central Bangkok, mentioned she first realized one thing was mistaken when she noticed a light-weight swinging backwards and forwards. Then she heard the constructing creaking, and she or he 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 among Bangkok’s many malls when the quake struck.

“Impulsively, the entire constructing started to maneuver. Instantly, there was screaming and a number of panic,” he mentioned. Some folks 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), in response to preliminary stories. Shallower earthquakes are inclined to trigger extra injury.

Accidents reported in China

To the northeast, the earthquake was felt in China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and brought about injury and accidents within the metropolis of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, in response to Chinese language media stories.

The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese language metropolis about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Ruili, was so sturdy that folks couldn’t stand, one resident advised The Paper, a web-based media outlet.

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Adam Schreck, Haruka Naga, Jerry Harmer, Grant Peck and Penny Wang in Bangkok, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Edith M. Lederer and Farnoush Amiri on the United Nations and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.