Desperate search for survivors continues in Bangkok high-rise collapse from 7.7 quake
A desperate search for survivors continued Sunday -- from a collapsed high-rise building that was under construction in Bangkok, Thailand, to the rubble of ancient buildings in neighboring Myanmar -- as a series of powerful aftershocks from Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake made it precarious for rescuers digging through debris, officials said.
The death toll in the Bangkok metropolitan region rose to 18 on Sunday, according to government officials. In Myanmar, the epicenter of Friday's earthquake, at least 1,644 people were dead and another 139 were officially missing. At least 3,408 people were injured in Myanmar alone, officials said.
The number of deaths across the devastated region is expected to rise, officials said.
MORE: Myanmar-Thailand earthquake live updates: Death toll climbs amid aftershocks
In the Bangkok metropolitan area, home to more than 17.4 million people, search-and-rescue workers were focused on a collapsed high-rise building in the Chatuchak district of Bangkok. At least 11 people, believed to all be construction workers, have been confirmed dead and another 78 people remain missing in the rubble of the 34-story Sky Villa condominium, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan administration.
More than 30 people were injured when floors of the building that was under construction began to pancake on top of each other around 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday, trapping construction workers in the debris and creating a large dust cloud that enveloped the area, officials said. The building collapsed about half an hour after the powerful earthquake, centered in Myanmar, struck.
Family members of the missing construction workers gathered near the collapsed building as search-and-rescue crews dug through the pile of debris by hand, racing against time in a search for survivors.
One brother and sister told ABC News their parents were among the workers who were in the building at the time of the collapse and are now among those unaccounted for.
MORE: PHOTOS: See the destruction in Myanmar, Thailand from 7.7 magnitude earthquake
American tourists Garret Briere and his wife told ABC News they never could have imagined that their first vacation to Thailand would end up being one of the most terrifying experiences of their lives.
The couple from Washington state was in the mall across the street from the Sky Villa construction site when the massive earthquake hit. Briere said he watched in horror as the building fell in the quake's aftermath and described panicked people running for their lives away from the structure. Briere said a huge dust cloud enveloped the area.
"We ran out of the building because it started shaking," Briere said. "I grabbed my wife's hand and I said, 'Don't let go.' Immediately, we were just covered in dust and debris, and we couldn't see, and there were thousands of people just in a panic."
MORE: Video 'Everything started shaking': Earthquake eyewitness
It took just several seconds for the entire building to be reduced to a 7-story-high pile of rubble, the couple said.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in Mandalay, Myanmar, the country's second-largest city. Bangkok is about 600 miles from the epicenter.
A series of aftershocks continued to shake the region Sunday. A 5.1 magnitude aftershock struck about 17 miles north of Mandalay on Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS also recorded another strong aftershock as a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Shwebo, which is about 68 miles northwest of Mandalay, earlier on Sunday.
Several videos emerged Sunday showing rescuers pulling survivors from the rubble in Myanmar. The Myanmar Fire Services Department released a video overnight showing rescuers pulling a woman alive from a collapsed building. People could be heard cheering in the background as the woman was taken to medics for treatment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted Friday about the potential U.S. response to the earthquake.
"My prayers go out to the people of Burma and Thailand who are impacted by the earthquake," Rubio wrote in a social media post. "We've been in contact with these countries and, as @POTUS said, stand ready to provide assistance."
Rubio also confirmed the State Department's teams in the affected countries were "safe and secure."
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has suspended nonemergency consular services for the time being. The U.S. mission to Thailand has not reported any disruption in services.
ABC News' Karson Yiu, Gamay Palacios and Preechaya Rassadanukul contributed to this report.
Desperate search for survivors continues in Bangkok high-rise collapse from 7.7 quake originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
2026 corn murals to feature patriotic theme
MITCHELL, S.D. (KELO)– Next year marks the 250th anniversary of America. The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4th, 1776. The Corn Palace in Mitchell is getting ready for the milestone. Rescue at Hippie Hole in the Black Hills Next year's murals will be all about the U.S. 'They're really representative of what our country's been through,' Corn Palace Director Dave Sietsema said. The patriotic theme of the 2026 designs coincides with the 250th anniversary of the country. 'We have some recruiting posters from the WWII era, we have the Wright Brothers aviation, we have the American eagle, the American flag, symbols like that that our country draws itself to to celebrate our patriotic side and who we are as a country,' Sietsema said. While the current murals will still remain up for months, work is underway to replace the material surrounding the murals. 'We've got a crew of high school and college kids who come back, we go out to any particular farmer's field and pick sour dock, like this right out of the field, and then we come back and we put in it a bundle like this,' Field Director Clark Mickelson said. The rye will also be replaced. Later this year, it will be time to add the new murals. 'Probably in October, November when the corn is harvested. It takes about 60 acres of corn to cover the corn palace,' Sietsema said. The murals were designed by Dakota Wesleyan students studying digital media and design. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Georgia airman who went missing in action during WWII recovered
A Georgia airman who went down in the Baltic Sea during World War II has been declared recovered six years after divers found an American bomber off the coast of Denmark. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, was accounted for Nov. 21, 2024. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, died on June 20, 1944, when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark. The aircraft, with 10 crew members, had departed Bungay, England, on a bombing mission to Politz, Germany. The plane collided with another B-24 in the same formation. The aircraft exploded when it hit the water, and two crew members were blown clear. The pilot and co-pilot survived and were rescued by Danish fishermen, taken into captivity by the Germans and eventually returned to Allied control. German records indicate they recovered the body of one crew member but do not report how they disposed of the body. Evidence suggested that Hymes and the six other crew members were killed in the crash. Hymes was declared dead by the U.S. War Department on June 21, 1945. The American Graves Registration Command tried to find Hymes and the rest of the crew, even searching remains that washed up on the coast. These efforts were ultimately fruitless, and Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number pointed to the craft being the lost bomber. The Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance in August 2021. This allowed Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency partner the University of Delaware and the Royal Danish Navy to survey the underwater site. The survey found human remains and enough evidence to recommend the site for further study. Additional excavation and recovery operations in 2022-2024 found more evidence, including remains and the ID tags of two crew members. Organizations that helped in the search and record efforts include Trident Archäologie, Wessex Archaeology, volunteers from Project Recover, stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. TRENDING STORIES: Driver charged in crash that killed South Fulton police captain appears in court Driver pulls out knife on couple driving too slow in Kennesaw neighborhood, police say 'Black Mecca' no longer? Atlanta prices cause families to move out of the city [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
How a wildlife researcher is estimating Albuquerque's badger population
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — A wildlife researcher is taking a look at how many American badgers are taking up shop in a 12-mile stretch of the Rio Grande Bosque. To make that happen, she's asking the people of Albuquerque to send any photos they have of badgers, specifically with their head stripes showing. Story continues below New Mexico Crime Files: Grocery store worker hands out semen-tainted yogurt Trending: Santa Fe man arrested after 'brandishing' gun at gas station New Mexico Strange: Holy dirt and healing water: A look at NM's miraculous locations News: National Guard deployment causes worry over New Mexico wildfire funds Ann Hunkins is a certified animal tracker and master's student at Prescott College. This badger research project was partly inspired by just how many badger digs Hunkins has been seeing in the bosque. Those digs posed the question – is there one overly-ambitious badger, or are there more like a dozen? 'So I'm working with the City of Albuquerque Open Space with this, and the idea is that it's going to help to inform land management decisions to know how many badgers are there, how they're using the land,' said Hunkins. 'Because we've also got a whole bunch of volunteers out there who are surveying the badger digs and uploading them into a monitoring app.' The study is limited to a 12-mile stretch of the Bosque from Alameda to Ceaser Chavez on the east side. Hunkins says trying to measure the entire greater Albuquerque area could lead to spotty results. The study is particularly trying to measure the 'range' of the badgers found in the bosque, meaning how far the animals are traveling. 'There was a badger digging at The Jackalope in the middle of town and badgers up on the Tramway, badgers in different parts of the city,' said Hunkins. 'So that's part of the study too, to try to find out where, how far the badgers are penetrating in the city.' She says badger range in general can vary from 25 square kilometers to 200 square kilometers. To the untrained eye, badger digs may look like coyote tracks, Hunkins explains. The difference is that badger digs are a little smaller and they're very asymmetrical, almost 'pigeon-toed.' They will usually show five toes on each foot, opposed to the four toes on coyote tracks. You can identify a badger based on its head stripe in the same way you can identify a person based off their fingerprint, making it crucial that submitted photos show off the badger's stripes. 'That was one of the things that got me on board to do the study. I was like, 'oh, so we can do it with camera tracking then,'' said Hunkins. 'We don't have to actually trap the badgers. We just need pictures of them… When we get those pictures, and then if we can match them with pictures from other cameras at other times, it just gives us a whole picture of what badgers are doing in the Bosque and in the whole city.' Badgers play a role in controlling rodent and insect populations. Hunkins say her team has been seeing 'shallow foraging digs,' where they're digging up insect groves beneath Cottonwood trees. They believe the badgers are going after the cottonwood leaf beetle groves under those trees. Badgers also tend to go after squirrels and gophers. 'I had a man tell me that he had a badger move into his backyard, and like two days later, all the squirrels were gone because the badger had taken care of them,' said Hunkins. 'Now sometimes that can be a problem for people because they'll dig up the entire yard, but usually it's not a problem because they'll just come in, target the species and go. They don't stay very long in any one place. So it's not like they're going to take up residence in your yard for a long period of time.' In New Mexico, American badgers are not considered an endangered species or a species of concern, although it's a different story in some areas. In British Columbia, American badgers are considered endangered, and over in California, they're considered a species of special concern. Hunkins says the primary threat for them would be the general loss of habitat from human activity, buildings, or roads. The study will come to a close in August. Hunkins will be analyzing the results throughout autumn. Photos of badgers can be submitted to abqbadgerphotos@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
