Three days after a major earthquake in Southeast Asia killed at least 2,000 people, survivors were rescued from rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were discovered in the remains of a tower in Bangkok on Monday.
Four people, including a pregnant lady and a girl, were rescued from collapsed houses in Mandalay, central Myanmar, near the epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
Related: Death toll in Myanmar earthquake soars as international aid steps in
Chinese rescue workers wearing red helmets carried one survivor wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket across piles of smashed concrete and twisted metal at an apartment block in Mandalay, according to CCTV footage.
Drone footage of the city revealed a massive, multi-story structure pancaked into layers of concrete, yet several golden temples remained intact.
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One Mandalay survivor stated that after rescue teams rescued him from the wreckage of his restaurant, he rented a bulldozer with his own money to try to locate the body of one of his employees and make the structure safe for his neighbours.
Read Also: Strong earthquake struck Southeast Asia leaving devastation in its wake
Civil strife in Myanmar, where a military junta took control in a coup in 2021, was hindering efforts to reach those injured and displaced by the Southeast Asian country’s largest earthquake in a century.
“Access to all victims is a problem… given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security challenges to visit some locations across the front lines in particular,” Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar.
One rebel group claimed that Myanmar’s ruling military was still conducting bombings on villages in the aftermath of the earthquake, and Singapore’s foreign minister urged for an urgent ceasefire to aid rescue work.
