Two powerful earthquakes struck Myanmar and Thailand on Friday, causing the collapse of a skyscraper under construction in Bangkok and trapping numerous workers, with emergency services confirming at least two fatalities.
Bangkok and six regions, along with several states in neighboring Myanmar, were put under a state of emergency following the initial earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.7 and was centered in Myanmar.
Myanmar’s state broadcaster MRTV reported that the military government had declared an emergency in Naypyitaw and Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city close to the epicenter.
In Mandalay, several buildings were reported collapsed according to witnesses speaking to Reuters, and a hospital handling mass casualties was also damaged.
Witnesses cited by Reuters reported that at least three fatalities occurred in Taungoo, Myanmar, due to severe damage to a mosque from the earthquake, while local reports claimed two deaths and 20 injuries from a hotel collapse in Aung Ban.
Myanmar authorities have yet to confirm these casualty reports.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey and Germany’s GFZ geosciences center, the first earthquake registered a magnitude of 7.7 at a relatively shallow depth of about 6 miles, with its epicenter near Mandalay, Myanmar.
The region experienced an aftershock of magnitude 6.4 just twelve minutes later.
Destruction in Myanmar
Amid an ongoing civil war, many areas in Myanmar are challenging to access.
The scope of potential relief efforts by Myanmar’s military government remains unclear, as does the extent of building damage, which includes a major hospital in the capital now serving as a mass casualty treatment area.
The hospital’s emergency department suffered severe damage, with images showing a car crushed under the fallen concrete roof of the entrance.
“Many injured people have been arriving; I haven’t seen anything like this before,” a doctor at the facility told the French news agency AFP. “We are trying to handle the situation. I’m so exhausted.”
AFP reporters at the site described scenes of agony, with people crying from pain while others lay motionless, receiving comfort from their families.
“Hundreds of injured people are arriving, but the emergency building here also collapsed,” hospital security personnel reported to AFP.
The quake also damaged parts of Mandalay’s former royal palace and other structures, with social media images and videos showing the extent of the destruction.
In the Sagaing region southwest of Mandalay, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed, and sections of the highway linking Mandalay to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, were damaged.
An AFP team inside the National Museum in Naypyitaw during the quake reported ceiling debris falling and the building shaking, with nearby roads also showing damage.
Under-construction skyscraper collapses in Bangkok
The tremors caused skyscrapers in densely populated Bangkok to sway, prompting thousands to evacuate into the streets. The Bangkok stock exchange suspended trading due to the quake.
Thai emergency teams reported two deaths and several people missing beneath the debris of the collapsed building under construction near Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market.
Rescue worker Songwut Wangpon, speaking beside the rubble, confirmed the rescue of seven survivors from the debris.
Water cascaded from rooftop pools atop high-rises, and debris fell from numerous buildings across the city as they swayed from the quake’s impact.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra convened an emergency meeting to evaluate the quakes’ damage.
With over 17 million residents, the greater Bangkok area has a high concentration of people living in high-rise buildings.
Alarms sounded in buildings across central Bangkok when the quake struck around 1:30 p.m., prompting the evacuation of startled residents from high-rises.
People sought refuge from the heat under shade in the streets, with warnings to remain outdoors due to potential aftershocks.
“All of a sudden, the whole building began to move; immediately, there was screaming and a lot of panic,” described Fraser Morton, a tourist in Bangkok, recalling the chaos inside a shopping mall.
“I just started walking calmly at first, but then the building started really moving; yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators, lots of banging and crashing inside the mall.”
As the building tremors intensified, Morton found safety in Benjasiri Park, away from the shaking structures.
“I got outside and then looked up at the building and the whole building was moving, dust and debris; it was pretty intense,” he said. “Lots of chaos.”
The Thai Department of Disaster Prevention reported that the quake was felt across nearly all parts of the country.
