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Bangkok earthquake: Race against time at collapsed skyscraper; 75 still missing
In Myanmar, the situation is dire. The death toll had reached 2,065, with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing.
Rescuers in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, pulled out another body from the rubble of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed in the earthquake, taking the death toll to 12. A huge search is underway for 75 people who are missing and are suspected to be trapped under the rubble. The number of total deaths in the country due to the tremors reached 19.
Bangkok's deputy governor Tavida Kamolvej said they have deployed scanning machines and sniffer dogs. Rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected.
Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding the rescuers will have to speed up and reach the trapped people.
"We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours," she added.
Dire situation in Myanmar
In Myanmar, the situation is dire. The death toll had reached 2,065, with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing.
The country is reeling under a shortage of medical supplies amid a raging civil war. Critical infrastructure - including bridges, highways, airports and railways - across the country of 55 million is damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts.
On Monday, rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay.
"Access to all victims is an issue ... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, told Reuters.
The 7.7 magnitude quake hit Friday, with the epicenter near Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay. It damaged the city’s airport, buckled roads and collapsed hundreds of buildings along a wide swath down the country’s center.
The country's rescue efforts are bogged down by power outages, fuel shortages, spotty communications and a lack of heavy machinery.
With inputs from AP, Reuters
