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 massive destruction seen in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city and home to more than 1.7 million people.
“We need aid,” said Thar Aye, 68, a Mandalay resident. “We don’t have enough of anything.”
At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, with at least 139 more missing, the junta said in a statement. Around 10 more deaths have been confirmed in Bangkok.
But with communications badly disrupted, the true scale of the disaster is only starting to emerge from the isolated military-ruled state, and the toll is expected to rise significantly.
In Mandalay, AFP journalists saw rescuers pull a woman alive from the remains of one apartment block where a Red Cross official said more than 90 people could be trapped.
After hours of painstaking work at the Sky Villa Condominium, half of whose 12 stores were flattened by the quake, Phyu Lay Khaing, 30, was brought out and carried by stretcher to be embraced by her husband and taken to hospital.
Another woman at the apartment block was less fortunate. Her 20-year-old son, an employee at the building, is still missing.
“We cannot find him yet. I only have this child — I feel so heartbroken,” said Min Min Khine, 56, a staff cook at the building.
“He ate at my dining room and said goodbye. Then he left and the earthquake happened. If he was with me, he might have escaped like me,” she told AFP.
Elsewhere in Mandalay, AFP journalists saw dozens of people preparing to bed down for the night in the streets, preferring to sleep in the open rather than take the risk in quake-damaged buildings.
– ‘Started shaking’ –
This was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in decades, according to geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away from the epicentre.
AFP journalists saw a centuries-old Buddhist pagoda in Mandalay that had been reduced to rubble.
“The monastery also collapsed. One monk died, some people were injured, we pulled out some people and took them to the hospital,” said a soldier at a nearby checkpoint.
