Powerful earthquake kills more than 140 in Myanmar, death toll likely to rise

A powerful earthquake killed more than 140 people in Myanmar on Friday, authorities said, toppling buildings and wrecking infrastructure across a wide area, including a skyscraper under construction in neighbouring Thailand.

The quake also hit Thailand, and an official said that at least nine people had died in the capital, Bangkok. Rescuers were searching through the rubble of a tower block that was under construction and collapsed in the quake.

Much of the destruction took place in Mandalay, which is Myanmar's second largest city and lies only about 17 km (10 miles) from the quake epicentre.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which struck at lunchtime, was of 7.7 magnitude and at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles).

Mandalay, with a population of about 1.5 million, is Myanmar's ancient royal capital and the centre of its Buddhist heartland. Buildings, bridges and roads were wrecked, residents and local media said.

State-run MRTV said at least 144 people had been killed in Myanmar and 732 injured.

"We all ran out of the house as everything started shaking," a Mandalay resident told Reuters. "I witnessed a five-storey building collapse in front of my eyes. Everyone in my town is out on the road, and no one dares to go back inside buildings."

A rescue worker from the Moe Saydanar charity group told Reuters it had retrieved at least 60 bodies from monasteries and buildings in Pyinmanar, near Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw, and more people were trapped.

"This 60 is only from my charity group and only at Pyinmanar town," he said.

Myanmar's military junta is locked in a struggle to put down insurgents fighting its rule, a situation that is likely to complicate the rescue and relief operation.

Junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing said there would be more deaths and casualties and he invited "any country" to provide help and donations. He said on state television he had opened routes for international assistance.

Zin Mar Aung, the diplomatic spokesman for the opposition National Unity Government, said fighters from the anti-junta militias known as the People's Defence Forces would provide humanitarian help.

A United States government analysis based on the strength and depth of the quake in Myanmar estimated there could be thousands of deaths and severe economic loss, with the Sagaing and Meiktila regions worst hit.

Other Topics To Read

• News
• World
• Asia
• earthquake
• Myanmar
• Bangkok
• Thailand
• United States Geological Survey
• Powerful earthquake kills more than 140 in Myanmar
• death toll likely to rise

Of the confirmed casualties in the Thai capital, eight died in the building collapse, while the ninth person died in a different location, Bangkok's Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said. The rescue operation at the building site said more than 100 people were missing.

The quake was followed by a powerful aftershock and several more moderate ones.

BUILDING, BRIDGES, ROADS DAMAGED

In Myanmar, the earthquake caused the collapse of buildings in five cities and towns, as well as a railway bridge and a road bridge on the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway, Myanmar state media said. Images showed the destroyed Ava Bridge over the Irrawaddy River, its arches leaning into the water.

A Mandalay resident said destruction stretched across the whole city, and one neighbourhood, Sein Pan, was on fire.

Roads were damaged, phone lines disrupted and there was no electricity, said the resident, who declined to be named.

Local media outlet, Myanmar Now posted images showing a clock tower had collapsed and part of the wall by Mandalay Palace was in ruins. A witness, Htet Naing Oo, told Reuters that a tea shop had collapsed with several people trapped inside.

"We couldn’t go in," she said. "The situation is very bad."

At least three people died after a mosque in Taungoo partially collapsed, two witnesses said.

"We were saying prayers when the shaking started... Three died on the spot," one said.

Local media reported a hotel in Aung Ban, in Shan State, crumbled into rubble, with the Democratic Voice of Burma reporting two people had died and 20 were trapped.

Army-run MRTV reported that the quake toppled buildings, crushed cars and left huge fissures on roads across the capital Naypyitaw.

Amnesty International said the earthquake could not have come at a worse time for Myanmar, given the number of displaced people, the existing need for relief aid, and cuts to U.S. aid by President Donald Trump's administration.

Restricted media access meant a clear picture of the extent of damage and loss might not emerge for some time, the group's Myanmar researcher, Joe Freeman, said.

Since overthrowing the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, the military has struggled to run the country, leaving the economy and basic services like healthcare in tatters.

An armed opposition, comprising established ethnic armies and new resistance groups formed since the coup, has seized swathes of territory and driven the junta out of border areas, increasingly hemming it into the central lowlands.

The fighting has displaced more than three million people in Myanmar, with widespread food insecurity and over a third of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

The country has also been hit by natural disasters in recent years, including Typhoon Yagi last year and Cyclone Mocha in 2023, and the internationally isolated junta has struggled to respond adequately.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw, a Myanmar academic at the University of Bristol, said Myanmar was "wholly unable to deal with the shock and its aftermath" due to the breakdown in civil society.

OFFICE TOWER SHAKES IN BANGKOK

In Bangkok, people ran onto the streets in panic, among them hotel guests in bathrobes and swimming costumes, as water cascaded down from an elevated pool at a luxury hotel, witnesses said.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand suspended all trading activities for the Friday afternoon session.

One office tower in downtown Bangkok swayed from side to side for at least two minutes, with doors and windows creaking loudly, witnesses said.

"At first, I didn’t realise (it was an earthquake)," office worker Varunyou Armarttayakul told Reuters."But then I saw the table shaking, and the chair and computer started swaying, too...Part of the ceiling even collapsed — that’s when I had to run out.”Myanmar lies on the boundary between two tectonic plates and is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, though large and destructive earthquakes have been relatively rare in the Sagaing region.