NAYPYIDAW: The death toll from a huge earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand passed 1,000 on Saturday afternoon (Mar 29), as rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings in a desperate search for survivors.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar early Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The quake destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with severe damage reported in the second biggest city, Mandalay.
In a statement on Saturday, the Myanmar junta’s information team said 1,002 people are known to have died in the quake, with 2,376 injured, AFP reported. Around 10 more deaths have been confirmed in Bangkok.
It was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in over a century, according to US geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre.
Rescuers in the Thai capital worked through the night searching for workers trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed, reduced in seconds to a pile of rubble and twisted metal by the force of the shaking.
