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Strong 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes Myanmar, with tremors felt in neighbouring Thailand Junta makes rare call for aid as Myanmar rocked by 7.7-magnitude earthquake
(about 1 hour later)
Witnesses in Bangkok more than 1,000km away said people ran out onto the streets in panic Tremors also felt in Thailand with deaths reported in both countries and hundreds of casualties taken to hospital
An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 has struck Myanmar, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, causing hundreds of people to pour out of swaying buildings in Bangkok, the capital of neighbouring Thailand 1,400km away. A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake has rocked Myanmar and Thailand, bringing down buildings and prompting Myanmar’s isolated military junta to make a rare request for international aid.
USGS said the quake on Friday was shallow, at a depth of just 10km (six miles) with the epicentre near the central city of Mandalay, about 50km (30 miles) east of the city of Monywa. Deaths have been reported in both countries, including three people who were killed when a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok collapsed. Dozens more people are missing at the site.
There were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake in Myanmar, which is in a state of chaos after a coup in 2021. Myanmar’s junta has not given a death toll on the Burmese side of the border, but witnesses and local media have said people have been killed in the city of Mandalay and the towns Tuangoo and Aung Ban. Hundreds of casualties were taken to a hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, with wounded people being treated outside because of damage to the building.
Startled residents in densely populated central Bangkok poured out of high-rise condominiums and hotels. The greater Bangkok area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments. The United States Geological Survey said the quake struck central Myanmar at 13:20 local time at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). Its epicentre was about 17.2 km from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city.
The quake was forceful enough to send water sloshing out of pools, some high up in high-rises, as the tremor shook. 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.
“I heard it and I was sleeping in the house, I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,” Duangjai, a resident of popular tourist city Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, told AFP. Myanmar’s junta, which has lost swathes of territory to armed groups, declared a state of emergency across the six worst-affected regions and asked for international aid.
More details soon … Footage reportedly taken inside Mandalay airport showed people racing to safety through dusty hallways, the floor scattered with ceiling panels. The videos, published by local media, show panicked people crouching on the floor outside the airport for safety.
An eyewitness in Mandalay, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian eight people had been killed and others are feared trapped after a construction building in Pyi Gyi Tagon township collapsed. “The whole of Mandalay city was affected by the earthquake. The rescue teams and hospitals are now overrun. We are managing with the resources we have in the neighbourhood,” they said.
Images published by Khit Thit Media, a local news site, showed piles of bricks and rubble outside a damaged mosque, also in Mandalay. At least 20 people died there, it reported, though it is not possible to verify this figure.
At least three people were also killed after a mosque in the town of Taungoo in Bago region partially collapsed, two witnesses told Reuters. “We were saying prayers when the shaking started … Three died on the spot,” said a witness. Local media reported that at least two people died and 20 were injured after a hotel collapsed in Aung Ban.
In a briefing to reporters in Geneva via video link from Yangon, Marie Manrique, programme coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross, said: “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. We anticipate the impact to be quite large.”
Myanmar has been gripped by conflict since the military seized power in February 2021, in a coup that was widely opposed by the public. The military has since launched brutal crackdowns on any forms of opposition, and it is dangerous for journalists to operate inside the country.
In Bangkok, city authorities declared the capital a disaster-stricken area, saying they needed to assess and monitor damaged areas, and help people who might still be at risk. People ran out on to 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.
In the northern tourist destination of Chiang Mai, where the power briefly went out, stunned residents also hurried outside, unsure of how to respond. “I quickly rushed out of the shop along with other customers,” said Sai, 76, who was working at a minimart in Chiang Mai when the shop started to shake. “This is the strongest tremor I’ve experienced in my life,” Sai told Agence France-Presse.