Major quake batters Myanmar; high toll is feared as buildings topple

BANGKOK – A powerful earthquake struck central Myanmar on Friday, gouging open roads, toppling century-old religious monuments and destroying multistory buildings as it shook a vast expanse of Southeast Asia and dealt another severe blow to a country that has been ripped apart by civil war.

While the death toll remains unclear, expert estimates warned it could be extraordinary, given the dense population and vulnerable structures near the epicenter, just outside Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. Modeling by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the death toll was likely to surpass 10,000, and that there was a strong possibility of a much higher toll.

A preliminary count from Myanmar’s military government said that at least 144 people had been killed and 732 injured in just three cities, but that did not include Mandalay.

The quake, measured by the USGS at magnitude 7.7, was strong enough that it leveled a 33-story building that was under construction more than 600 miles away in Bangkok, in neighboring Thailand. At least eight people were confirmed dead there, and dozens more were missing, according to authorities. They were all presumed to be members of the 320-person crew of workers who were putting up the new building for the Thai government.

The earthquake, which struck about 12:50 p.m. local time, was only the third of its size to hit the region in the past century, and the USGS analysis placed the epicenter just 10 miles from the heart of Mandalay, a city of about 1.5 million people. An aftershock of magnitude 6.7 was recorded about 11 minutes later, the first of several sizable tremors that followed the first one.

The shaking was felt as far away as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and southern China, where state news media reported that an unspecified number of people had been injured in Ruili, near the Myanmar border.

In Myanmar, a surgeon at Mandalay General Hospital said so many people had arrived for treatment that nurses had run out of cotton swabs and that he had nowhere to stand.

“More injured people keep arriving, but we do not have enough doctors and nurses,” said the surgeon, Dr. Kyaw Zin.

Because phone lines were down, he said, he was unsure if his parents had survived.

“But I can’t go back home yet,” he said. “I have to save lives here first.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.