Search for quake survivors intensifies in Myanmar, Thailand
BANGKOK: Survivors were pulled out of rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed around 2,000.
Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in central Myanmar near the epicentre of Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
A civil war in the Southeast Asian nation, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by Myanmar's biggest quake in a century.
"Access to all victims is an issue... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, said.
One rebel group said Myanmar's ruling military was still conducting air strikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts.
In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site.
Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the site and Bangkok's Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake.
Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours."
In Myanmar, state media said at least 1,700 people have been confirmed dead as of Sunday and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing the junta, reported the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death toll. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing warned at the weekend that the number of fatalities could rise.
China, India and Thailand are among Myanmar's neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia. — Reuters
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