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Bangkok earthquake eyewitnesses reveal 'horrendous' ordeal: 'Many lives lost'
Bangkok earthquake: A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar killing several people, bringing down a skyscraper under construction in Bangkok.
Bangkok earthquake: A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar on Friday, causing roads to cave in the capital, Naypyidaw, and sending tremors as far as China, Thailand, Vietnam, and parts of India.
According to the USGS, the earthquake struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, 16 kilometres northwest of Myanmar's Sagaing. In Thailand's Bangkok, the strong tremors were felt at about 1.21 pm (local) and were the strongest worldwide since 2023, according to Bloomberg. Follow LIVE updates here.
While the extent of damage in Myanmar and Thailand is yet to be determined, videos shared on social media showed an under-construction high-rise in Bangkok collapsing. Many other buildings also sustained damage.
Witnesses in Bangkok said people ran out onto the streets in panic as buildings shook and alarms went off.
Also Read | Bangkok rooftop pool turns into waterfall as buildings sway from strong Myanmar earthquake. Video
“All of a sudden, the whole building began to move, immediately there was screaming and a lot of panic,” Fraser Morton, a tourist from Scotland, who was in one of Bangkok's many malls, told Reuters.
“I just started walking calmly at first, but then the building started moving, yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators, lots of banging and crashing inside the mall,” Morton added.
Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bangkok's Bang Sue district, told AFP that he could hear people screaming for aid trapped in the debris after a 30-story under-construction tower block collapsed.
Also Read | Shocking video captures train rattling at Bangkok metro station as earthquake strikes
"I heard people calling for help, saying help me," he told AFP. "We estimate that hundreds of people are injured, but we are still determining the number of casualties."
"I fear many lives have been lost. We have never experienced an earthquake with such a devastating impact before."
Paul Vincent, a tourist from England, told AP that he was at a streetside bar when the earthquake struck.
“The next thing, everybody came on the street, so there was a lot of screaming and panicking, which made it a lot worse,” he said.
Vincent said he saw a high-rise building swaying and water was falling from a rooftop pool.
“When I saw the building, oh my God, that’s when ... it hit me,” he said. “People were crying in the streets and, you know, the panic was horrendous really.”
