A magnitude of 7.7 earthquake shake Thailand And Myanmar’s noon neighbor on Friday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burning dozens when a high building was collapsed and caused Myanmar to declare a widespread state of emergency.
The midday temblor with an epicenter near Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar, was followed by a strong area of magnitude 6.4.
Myanmar’s military government declared an emergency state to six regions and states, including the capital Naypyitaw and Mandalay, but with the country in the midst of a prolonged bloody civil war, it was unclear how help would reach many regions.
The Red Cross said that the dropped power lines are added to the challenges of their teams trying to reach the Mandalay and Sagaing regions and south of Shan State.
« Initial terrain reports suggest that the earthquake has caused significant damage, » said the Red Cross. « Information on humanitarian needs is still being collected. »
The building with cranes collapsed in a cloud of dust
In Bangkok, a construction worker was assassinated when the rubble of the collapsing building struck his truck and another was crushed by waste, he told the journalists the rescue worker Songwut Wangpon.
The Minister of Defense, Phumham Wechayachai, said that the three people were killed at the site and that 90 were missing. He did not offer more details on the ongoing rescue efforts, but the first who responded said that seven people had been rescued to outside the collapsed building.
Rescue workers say that the debris is still too unstable for them to try to find people possibly trapped below.
A dramatic video of the building’s collapse near the popular Bangkok Chattuchak market circulated on social media showed the building on several floors with a crane on top that was placed in a dust cloud, while spectators shouted and ran.
Any other place, the people of Bangkok of their buildings were warned to stay out if there were more repercussions.
The United States Geological Survey and the GFZ Center for Geosciences in Germany said that the earthquake was a shallow 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to preliminary reports.
A woman reacts as she looks at the lifeguards at the place of a building of high construction that collapsed after a magnitude of 7.7 earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday.
AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn
Shouting and panic as the buildings were swinging
The sound of the sirens echoed throughout the Bangkok center, and the vehicles filled the street, leaving some of the already congested streets in the city. The rapid traffic system and the subway closed.
The City Council declared the city a disaster area to facilitate the help of intergency and emergency aid. The Bangkok area houses more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high apartments.
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April Kanichawanakul, who works in an office building in the city center of Bangkok, at first not even realized that it was an earthquake, the first thing he had experienced. « I just thought I was dizzy, » he said.
She and her colleagues ran on the ground floor from the tenth floor of her building, Tonson Tower, and waited outside a sign that was safe to enter again.
« Suddenly, the whole building began to move. Immediately there were shouts and a lot of panic, » said Fraser Morton, a tourist in Scotland, who was in one of the many Bangkok shopping centers that bought camera equipment.
« I just started walking calmly at first, but the building really started moving, yes, many shouts, a lot of panic, people running along the wrong path through the escalators, struck and crashed inside the mall. »
The lifeguards walk to the place of a building of altitude under construction that collapsed after a magnitude of 7.7 earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday.
AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
Like Morton, thousands of people dumped Benjasiri Park from nearby shopping centers, high ascents and apartment buildings on the occupied Bangkok Sukhumvit road.
Many were in phones trying to reach loved ones, as others sought shadow of the hot sun in the early afternoon. Others fixed themselves with fear of the tall buildings of the densely full part of the city.
« I went out and then looked at the building and the whole building was moving, the dust and the debris was quite intense, » said Morton. « Very chaos. »
Voranoot Tiwat, a lawyer working in Bangkok, said that his first indication that something was going wrong came when he saw a light swinging on. He then heard the building climbed as it moved and returned to the shock waves.
She and her colleagues ran 12 stairs flights. « In my life, there was no earthquake like this in Bangkok, » he said.
Paul Vincent, a visiting tourist from England, was in a street bar when the earthquake struck.
« The next, everyone went out, so there were many shouts and panic, which obviously worsened, » he said.
When he went out, he said he saw a building raised by balancing and the water falling from a pool on the roof.
« When I saw the building, my God, it was when … it struck me, » he said. « There were people crying on the streets and you know, panic was really horrible. »
People wait for him to be told that it is safe to return to the Sathorn Gardens Condominity building after an earthquake in Bangkok on Friday.
AP Photo/Brian Pd Hannon
The bridge collapses to Myanmar and the injuries reported in China
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city near the epicenter, the earthquake damaged part of the old palace and royal buildings, according to videos and photographs published on Facebook’s social networks.
Although the area is prone to earthquakes, it is generally poorly populated and most houses are low high structures.
In the region of Sagaing, southwest of Mandalay, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed and some sections of the road that connected Mandalay and the largest city in Myanmar, Yangon, were also damaged.
Residents of Yangon rushed from their homes when the earthquake collided. There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths.
A Buddhist monk walks near a building damaged in a monastery compound after an earthquake, on Friday, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar.
AP Photo/Aung Shine Yes
In the capital Naypyitaw, the earthquake damaged religious shrines, sending parts that were demolished on the ground and some houses.
In the north -East, the earthquake felt in the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan in China and caused damage to the houses and injuries to the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media.
The videos that an outing said that he had received from a Ruili person showed that the construction of waste was a street and a person who was heading on a stretcher to an ambulance.
The shake in Mangshi, a Chinese city about 100 kilometers north -east of Ruili, was so strong that people could not stand, a resident of The Paper said, an online media dam.
A resident of Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, said to the role that his roof lamp swinging wild and that the shake lasted more than 10 seconds.
The Thailand Disaster Prevention Department said that the earthquake was heard in almost all regions of the country.
Prime Minister Paetongarn Shinawatra called an emergency meeting to evaluate the impact of the earthquake.
Damaged pagodas are seen after an earthquake on Friday in Naypyitaw, Myanmar.
AP Photo/Aung Shine Yes
Adam Schreck, Haruka Naga, Jerry Harmer, Grant Peck and Penny Wang in Bangkok, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.
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