Bangkok, Thailand
CNN
—
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit the heart of war-ravaged Myanmar on Friday, triggering the collapse of buildings hundreds of miles away in Thailand, where authorities declared an “emergency zone” in the capital Bangkok.
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. Tremors were also felt in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, which neighbors Myanmar.
Myanmar’s military junta has declared an “emergency situation” across a swathe of the center of the country, including in the second most populous city Mandalay and the military-built capital of Naypyidaw.
In the town of Taungoo, 70 miles south of the capital Naypyidaw, three people were killed after a mosque partially collapsed, Reuters reported, as authorities launch rescue efforts.
Thailand’s prime minister also declared an “emergency zone” in the Thai capital after the quake triggered the collapse of an under-construction high-rise building, killing at least one person and injuring 50 others.
Authorities are racing to rescue dozens of others believed to be trapped under the rubble, Bangkok’s National Institute for Emergency Medicine (NIEM) said, as the regional governor warned people to be cautious after many high-rise buildings were damaged.
Myanmar is already reeling from more than 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. It remains one of Asia’s poorest nations and has weak infrastructure, leaving it ill-equipped to deal with major natural disasters.
The quake hit around 12:50 p.m. local time close to Mandalay, home to about 1.5 million people and historic temple complexes. 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.
There was no immediate word from Myanmar authorities about the extent of the damage.
Several people in Mandalay told Reuters news agency they saw buildings collapse. One person, who did not want to be named, said they saw a five-story building fall in the city and another, Htet Naing Oo, said a tea shop collapsed with several people trapped inside.
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.
A resident of Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai, who did not want to be named, also said tremors were felt. “I couldn’t stay inside. So I rushed out onto the street,” they said.
Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport said around two hours after the quake that it was operating as usual, in an update shared on X.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Lex Harvey, Todd Symons, Edward Szekeres, Hassan Tayir and Manveena Suri contributed reporting.