The rare plea from the junta raises the prospect that damage and casualties may be on a large scale, with Myanmar’s medical system and infrastructure ravaged by four years of civil war.
As night fell, AFP journalists saw rescuers trying to extract a mother and son from the ruins of a collapsed building in the capital.
Both were seriously injured but rescuers were unable to reach them, a Red Cross worker told AFP.
SKYSCRAPER COLLAPSE
In Thailand, Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters at least three workers had been killed, with 81 more trapped, after the collapse of a building under construction near the sprawling Chatuchak market.
Rescuers were surveying the tangle of rubble and twisted metal for a safe way to search for survivors, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
“I heard people calling for help, saying ‘help me’,” Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP.
“We estimate that hundreds of people are injured,” he said.
