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Search for quake survivors intensifies in Myanmar, Thailand; death toll exceeds 2,000

31 March 2025 21:25 (UTC +04:00)

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 at least 2,000, APA reports citing Reuters.

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.

"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, told Reuters.

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."

Initial tests showed that some steel samples collected from the site of the collapsed building were substandard, Thai industry ministry officials said. The government has launched an investigation into the cause of the collapse.

"We will have to collect more samples and conduct more tests once we can," official Nontichai Likitaporn told a press conference.