A powerful earthquake rattled Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand on Friday, trapping dozens of workers in a collapsed under-construction skyscraper in Bangkok where a state of emergency was declared.<\/p>\n
The 7.7-magnitude tremor hit northwest of the city of Sagaing on Friday afternoon at a shallow depth, the United States Geological Survey said. A 6.4-magnitude aftershock hit the same area minutes later.<\/p>\n
In the Thai capital, a 30-storey building under construction collapsed, trapping 43 workers, police and medics said.<\/p>\n
The massive building intended for government offices was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds, footage shared on social media showed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I arrived to inspect the site, I heard people calling for help, saying help me,\u201d Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe estimate that hundreds of people are injured but we are still determining the number of casualties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Across the border in Myanmar, a team of AFP journalists were at the National Museum in Naypyidaw when the earthquake struck.<\/p>\n
Pieces fell from the ceiling as the building began shaking. Uniformed staff ran outside, some trembling and tearful, others grabbing cellphones to try to contact loved ones.<\/p>\n
Roads nearby were buckled and broken by the tremors and the route to one of the city\u2019s biggest hospitals was jammed with traffic.<\/p>\n
The hospital was a \u201cmass casualty area\u201d after the quake, officials said.<\/p>\n
An ambulance made its way between vehicles, a paramedic shouting \u201ccars, move aside so the ambulance can get through\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the 1,000-bed hospital, the wounded were being treated in the street outside, intravenous drips hanging from their gurneys.<\/p>\n
Some writhed in pain, others lay still as relatives sought to comfort them. The tremors send people into the streets across both countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard it and I was sleeping in the house, I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,\u201d Duangjai, a resident of the popular northern Thailand tourist city Chiang Mai, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Sai, a 76-year-old Chiang Mai resident, was working at a minimart when the shop started the shake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI quickly rushed out of the shop along with other customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the strongest tremor I\u2019ve experienced in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A powerful earthquake rattled Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand on Friday, trapping dozens of workers in a collapsed under-construction skyscraper in Bangkok where a state of emergency was declared. The 7.7-magnitude tremor hit northwest of the city of Sagaing on Friday afternoon at a shallow depth, the United States Geological Survey said. A 6.4-magnitude aftershock hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7490,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7488\/revisions\/7490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}