A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar on Friday, March 28, causing extensive damage across a wide swath of one of the world's poorest countries and prompting officials to warn that the initial death toll was updated to 694 dead, 1,670 injured, according to the junta on Saturday.
In Thailand, authorities in Bangkok said six people were killed, 22 were injured and 101 were missing from three construction sites, including the high-rise. They revised the death toll Saturday morning from 10 reported the previous day, saying several critically injured people were mistakenly reported dead. Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said that more people were believed to be alive in the wreckage as search efforts continued Saturday morning.
The 7.7 magnitude quake struck at midday, with an epicenter near Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. Aftershocks followed, one of them measuring a strong 6.4 magnitude. Myanmar is in an active earthquake belt, though many of the temblors happen in sparsely populated areas, not cities like those affected Friday. The US Geological Survey, an American government science agency, estimated that the death toll could top 1,000.
In Mandalay, the earthquake reportedly brought down multiple buildings, including one of the city's largest monasteries. Photos from the capital city of Naypyidaw showed rescue crews pulling victims from the rubble of multiple buildings used to house civil servants.
Myanmar's government said blood was in high demand in the hardest-hit areas. In a country where prior governments sometimes have been slow to accept foreign aid, Min Aung Hlaing said Myanmar was ready to accept assistance.
China dispatched a 37-member team, which reached the city of Yangon early Saturday with earthquake detectors, drones and other supplies, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Russia's emergencies ministry also dispatched two planes carrying 120 rescuers and supplies, according to a report from the Russian state news agency Tass.
The United Nations allocated $5 million to start relief efforts. President Donald Trump said Friday that the US was going to help with the response, but some experts were concerned about this effort given his administration's deep cuts in foreign assistance.
But the effects of his administration's deep cuts in foreign assistance through the US Agency for International Development and the State Department will likely be tested in any response to the first big natural disaster of his second term.
But amid images of buckled and cracked roads and reports of a collapsed bridge and a burst dam, there were concerns about how rescuers would even reach some areas in a country already enduring a humanitarian crisis. "We fear it may be weeks before we understand the full extent of destruction caused by this earthquake," said Mohammed Riyas, the International Rescue Committee's Myanmar director.
Myanmar's English-language state newspaper, Global New Light of Myanmar, said five cities and towns had seen building collapses and two bridges had fallen, including one on a key highway between Mandalay and Yangon.
Elsewhere, videos posted online showed robed monks in a Mandalay street, shooting their own video of the multistory Ma Soe Yane monastery before it suddenly fell into the ground. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was harmed. Video also showed damage to the former royal palace.
Residents of Yangon, the nation's largest city, rushed out of their homes when the quake struck. In Naypyitaw, some homes stood partly crumbled, while rescuers heaved away bricks from the piles of debris. An injured man reclined on a wheeled stretcher, while another man fanned him in the heat.
In a country where many people already were struggling, "this disaster will have left people devastated," said Julie Mehigan, who oversees Christian Aid's work in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. "Even before this heartbreaking earthquake, we know conflict and displacement has left countless people in real need," Mehigan said.
In Thailand, a 33-story building under construction crumpled into a cloud of dust near Bangkok's popular Chatuchak market, and onlookers could be seen screaming and running in a video posted on social media. Vehicles on a nearby freeway came to a stop.
Sirens blared across the Thai capital's downtown as rescuers streamed to the wreckage. Above them, shredded steel and broken concrete blocks, some stacked like pancakes, rose in a towering heap. Injured people were rushed away on gurneys, and hospital beds were also wheeled outside onto a sidewalk. "It's a great tragedy," Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit said after viewing the site.
To the northeast, the earthquake was felt in China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and caused damage and injuries in the city of Ruili on the border with Myanmar, according to Chinese media reports. The shaking in Mangshi, a Chinese city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Ruili, was so strong that people couldn't stand, one resident told The Paper, an online media outlet.