MANDALAY: Residents scrambled desperately by way of collapsed buildings on Sunday (Mar 30) trying to find survivors as aftershocks rattled the devastated metropolis of Mandalay, two days after an enormous earthquake killed greater than 1,600 folks in Myanmar and not less than 11 in neighbouring Thailand.
The preliminary 7.7-magnitude quake struck close to the central Myanmar metropolis of Mandalay early Friday afternoon, adopted minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The tremors collapsed buildings, downed bridges and buckled roads, with mass destruction seen within the metropolis of greater than 1.7 million folks.
As daybreak broke on Sunday, tea store proprietor Win Lwin picked his manner by way of the stays of a collapsed restaurant on a important highway in his neighbourhood, tossing bricks apart one after the other.
“About seven folks died right here (when the quake struck Friday),” he advised AFP. “I am on the lookout for extra our bodies however I do know there can’t be any survivors.
“We do not know what number of our bodies there may very well be however we’re wanting.”
About an hour later, a small aftershock struck, sending folks scurrying out of a resort for security, following an analogous tremor felt late on Saturday night.
Truckloads of firemen gathered at considered one of Mandalay’s important hearth stations to be dispatched to websites across the metropolis.
The evening earlier than, rescuers had pulled a lady out alive from the wreckage of a collapsed condominium constructing, with applause ringing out as she was carried by stretcher to an ambulance.
Myanmar’s ruling junta stated in a press release Saturday that not less than 1,644 folks had been killed and greater than 3,400 injured within the nation, with not less than 139 extra lacking.
However with unreliable communications, the true scale of the catastrophe stays unclear within the remoted military-ruled state, and the toll is anticipated to rise considerably.
