State of emergency declared in Bangkok after quake, says Thai PM
Thai authorities have declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Friday after the city was hit by a major earthquake centred in Myanmar.
Damage was reported to buildings across Bangkok after the 7.7-magnitude quake, including a 30-storey under construction skyscraper that collapsed in the city’s north.
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Police and medics say 43 trapped as Bangkok skyscraper collapses
A 30-storey skyscraper under construction for government offices has collapsed in Bangkok trapping 43 workers, police and medics said, after the city was rocked by a strong earthquake.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the building in the north of the Thai capital was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds after the 7.7-magnitude quake in neighbouring Myanmar.
Witnesses in Bangkok told Reuters that people ran out on to the streets in panic, many of them hotel guests in bathrobes and swimming costumes.
One office tower in downtown Bangkok swayed from side to side for at least two minutes, with doors and windows creaking loudly, witnesses said. Hundreds of employees filed out via emergency stairs.
Outside, hundreds gathered in the afternoon sun, while staff with medical kits found office chairs for those in shock, reports Reuters.
Here are some more images coming in via the newswires:
A high-rise building under construction in Bangkok collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar midday on Friday, police said, and possible casualties are not yet known.
According to the Associated Press (AP), a dramatic video has been circulating on social media showing the multistory building with a crane on top collapsing into a cloud of dust.
Police told the AP they were responding to the scene near Bangkok’s popular Chatuchak market, and had no immediate information on how many workers were on the site at the time of the collapse.
‘A five-storey building collapsed in front of my eyes’
One witness in Mandalay told Reuters:
We all ran out of the house as everything started shaking.
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.”
Witnesses contacted by Reuters in Yangon said many people ran out from buildings in the city, the largest in Myanmar.
An officer from the Myanmar fire services department told Reuters:
We have started the search and going around Yangon to check for casualties and damage. So far, we have no information yet.”
Reuters reports that social media posts from Mandalay, Myanmar’s ancient royal capital that is at the centre of its Buddhist heartland, showed collapsed buildings and debris strewn across streets of the city. However, Reuters could not immediately verify the posts.
In Thailand, there were no immediate reports of casualties and Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra called an emergency meeting to assess the impact of the quake.
Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention said the quake was felt in almost all regions of the country.
The greater Bangkok area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments.
As we mentioned earlier, the epicenter of the earthquake was in central Myanmar, about 30 miles (50km) east of the city of Monywa.
The AP says that in the capital Naypyidaw, the quake damaged religious shrines, sending parts toppling to the ground, and some homes.
Further reports of damage were not immediately available from Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war.
Here are some of the latest images from Thailand:
Strong, shallow earthquake strikes Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand
An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 has struck Myanmar, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, causing hundreds of people to pour out of swaying buildings in Bangkok, the capital of neighbouring Thailand 1,400km away.
USGS said the quake on Friday was shallow, at a depth of just 10km (six miles) with the epicentre near the central city of Mandalay, about 50km (30 miles) east of the city of Monywa.
There were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake in Myanmar, which is in a state of chaos after a coup in 2021.
Startled residents in densely populated central Bangkok poured out of high-rise condominiums and hotels. The greater Bangkok area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments.
The quake was forceful enough to send water sloshing out of pools, some high up in high-rises, as the tremor shook.
“I heard it and I was sleeping in the house, I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,” Duangjai, a resident of popular tourist city Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, told AFP.