Debi Edward:
The man filming shouted a warning, but it took just three seconds for the entire skyscraper to collapse. He kept recording as he and his co-workers fled in terror and were engulfed in dust.
Across Bangkok, people watched in horror as the building with a construction crane on top crumpled to the ground following a massive earthquake. A major rescue operation swung into action, with 90 people trapped in the mound of rubble and twisted metal. The epicenter was in neighboring Myanmar, where it struck during Friday prayers. This mosque caved in on the worshipers inside.
A group of monks, cowering outside the ruins of their temple, watched as another building nearby collapsed. At Mandalay Airport, passengers and staff crouched in fear on the tarmac as the tremors continued. In the Burmese capital, the general hospital was quickly overwhelmed, the sounds of heart monitors and screams of pain punctuating an air of chaos in a mass casualty area.
For the past four years, Myanmar has been gripped in a bloody civil war, and now nature has inflicted a disaster on its people. The country is largely cut off from the world and communications inside are restricted. So the scale of loss they are facing is still unknown.