Myanmar’s military junta makes rare plea for help after powerful earthquake kills scores with toll expected to rise

By Ross Adkin, Alex Stambaugh and Kocha Olarn, CNN

Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) — A 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit the heart of war-ravaged Myanmar of Friday, killing scores of people and prompting the country’s military junta to make a rare plea for international assistance.

The earthquake cut through a vast and varied corner of Southeast Asia, sending terrifying tremors through rural villages caught in the middle of Myanmar’s civil war all the way to the glitzy high-rises of the traffic-filled Thai capital Bangkok. Shaking was even felt across the border in China’s southwestern remote and mountainous Yunnan province.

At least 144 people have been killed and more than 730 injured, the head of Myanmar’s military government said late Friday evening. Deaths have also been reported in Thailand. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates the final toll could surpass 10,000 people, according to their early modeling, and that “high casualties and extensive damage” was likely.

Having largely shut the country off from the world during its four years of civil war, Min Aung Hlaing – the leader of Myanmar’s military government – declared a state of emergency and issued an “open invitation to any organizations and nations willing to come and help the people in need within our country,” adding the toll was likely to rise.

With electricity and internet down in parts of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing’s unexpected call for help is a measure of the devastation the quake has wrought in the country his junta has helped turn into a pariah state.

Rescue efforts are likely to vary hugely between the two countries. Myanmar, one of Asia’s poorest nations, has a long and troubled track record of struggling to respond to major natural disasters, often rebuffing international aid offers and publicly downplaying damage. In contrast, neighboring Thailand is far more prosperous and a major tourist destination, with well-resourced and experienced rescue teams.

The quake was felt hundreds of miles from the epicenter near the city of Mandalay in northern Myanmar. Erik Honan, a US citizen visiting a friend in the eastern Thai city of Pattaya, said when he saw items begin to slide on a coffee table early Friday, he “knew immediately what it was.”

“Mother Nature was having its way – like swatting a fly,” Honan told CNN.

Bangkok high rise crumbles

Video posted online showed panicked residents across Myanmar and Thailand running from swaying residential towers as dust fills the air, and traffic comes to a sudden stop on busy city streets.

Rescue efforts in Bangkok are focusing on the site of a high-rise tower that was under construction and collapsed during the quake. Thai authorities fear more than 100 people, mostly construction workers, are thought to be trapped under the building, which was being built by a Chinese state owned company and is now a mess of twisted steel and shattered concrete.

Sunan Kenkiat, 31, was working on the fire sprinkler system at the building before it collapsed on Friday.

“It was shaking and I felt dizzy,” Kenkiat told CNN of the moment the high-rise building began to rock. “After that, debris like cement pieces started falling down, and the shaking got stronger, so I shouted for everyone to run.” He then heard three “booms,” and his eyes filled with white dust — and he knew he the building was about to give way.

He managed to escape, dazed and covered in dust, but many of his colleagues remain trapped.

As of 10 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) on Friday, at least 10 people had died in the Thai capital due to the quake, according to Deputy Bangkok Governor Tavida Kamolvej.

The Thai capital is not a city used to earthquakes and in recent decades condominiums have sprung up across its congested streets. City authorities advised residents of two buildings in the city to evacuate after they sustained damage in the quake. One building was in the Chatuchak district, while the other was in Phra Khanong. Both will be inspected for damage, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said.

The administration added that it had received nearly 1,000 reports of “structural concerns” across the city following the quake and a team of engineers will assess cases based on severity, with three high-risk cases identified so far.

The structural assessments will ramp up on Saturday morning.

In addition, five public parks and six temporary shelters have been opened for residents to seek refuge, with police and city officials being deployed to maintain safety, the administration said.

‘Disaster on top of disaster’ for Myanmar

Myanmar is already reeling from four years of civil war sparked by a bloody and economically destructive military coup, which has seen junta forces battle rebel groups across the country. The coup and ensuing conflict has battered its health infrastructure, leaving it ill-equipped to deal with major natural disasters.

Swathes of the country lie outside the control of the junta and are a run by a patchwork of ethnic rebels and militias, making compiling reliable information extremely difficult.

“Almost 80% of the country is outside of the control (of the military), and then they are controlled by different ethnic armed groups,” a country director for an international NGO operating there told CNN. “They’re controlled by the PDF (People’s Defense Force) under the NUG (National Unity Government), so you can’t have a full picture of what is going on.”

Reports on the damage are still emerging and it could be weeks before the full extent of the devastation is known, but it’s likely to be “severe,” according to the International Rescue Committee’s Myanmar director.

The limited amount of available information is partly due to communication lines being down and transport being disrupted, Mohamed Riyas said in a statement. The rescue chief added that the “damage to infrastructure and homes, loss of life, and injuries sustained by communities affected should not be underestimated.”

Amnesty International has urged the ruling junta to allow aid groups to enter freely, saying the quake “could not come at a worse time” for the war-ravaged country.

Tom Andrew, the United Nations special rapporteur for Myanmar, said the quake would pile “a disaster on top of a disaster.” With more than 20 million people already in need of humanitarian aid and some 3.5 million internally displaced, “I shudder to think what will be happening in the next few days as rescue operations kick in,” Andrews told CNN.

A resident of Mandalay told CNN they weren’t sure they would survive the quake.

“The quake was very powerful, we could not run out of the building immediately,” said Tun Kyaw, 26, asking to use a pseudonym.

“It was like the whole building was going to collapse. I was not sure I would get out alive.”

The quake hit around 12:50 p.m. local time close to Mandalay, the former royal capital that is home to about 1.5 million people and boasts a host of historic temple complexes and palaces. Several aftershocks have since struck nearby, including one of 6.4-magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The epicenter was recorded in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region, which has been ravaged by the civil war, with the junta, pro-military militia and rebel groups battling for control and all running checkpoints, making travel by road or river extremely difficult.

Sagaing is largely rural with dwellings mostly built with wood and thatch. Communications in the area are typically patchy due to intermittent fighting between the junta and rebel groups.

In the town of Taungoo, 70 miles south of the capital Naypyidaw, three people were killed after a mosque partially collapsed, Reuters reported.

One resident in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub and around 380 miles away from the epicenter, told CNN: “We felt the quake for about one minute and then we ran out of the building.”

“We saw other people running out of the buildings too. It was very sudden and very strong.”

Another resident said phone networks in the city home to around 8 million people were briefly down following the quake, but were now working again.

A Yangon resident named Wang, who was on the 20th floor of a building when the quake hit, said “people next to me were all scared to death.”

“The quake felt so strong, and lasted really long,” said Wang, who did not want to give her first name.

Video obtained by CNN from Myanmar appeared to show a road bridge spanning the Irrawaddy River, which runs through Mandalay, collapsing into the river in a cloud of dust and water.

This story has been updated with developments.

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CNN’s Lex Harvey, Todd Symons, Edward Szekeres, Hassan Tayir, Manveena Suri, Chris Lau, Rob Picheta, Lauren Kent, Billy Stockwell and Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed reporting.