Mandalay, Bangkok – Rescue workers in Myanmar are struggling to save people trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings in the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay, following the powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake that toppled buildings, brought down bridges, destroyed roads and sent shockwaves felt across the region.
Every street in the city has collapsed buildings as a result of Friday’s quake. Distraught residents are waiting outside their damaged and flattened homes and businesses for rescue crews and any assistance from the government, which has yet to arrive.
Mandalay resident Sandar Win, 45, told Al Jazeera how her six-year-old son was trapped under falling debris and suffered a fractured pelvis.
Sandar Win said she brought her boy to Mandalay General Hospital but they were turned away as the facility was overcrowded with victims of the earthquake.
“So we had to go to a private hospital. He is now in the operating room,” Sandar Win said. “He is our only child. My heart is dying to see my son like this.”
Shops, restaurants and teashops are closed and there are crowds at Mandalay’s petrol stations, with people in need of fuel for electric generators as power is out in the city of more than 1.5 million.
Ambulances have been seen speeding in the direction of Pyin Oo Lwin, a town situated in the scenic hills about 64km (40 miles) east of Mandalay and popular with foreign tourists and visitors from other parts of Myanmar.
Wai Phyo, a rescue worker, said search and recovery teams were doing their best but were overwhelmed by the scale of destruction and the lack of “proper equipment”.
“There are many people still trapped under the debris. We hope to get them alive but the hope is not so bright,” Wai Phyo told Al Jazeera, adding that communications were also a problem as they barely had phone lines and access to the internet was almost impossible.
Myanmar’s military has sent troops to the affected areas, but “they are not helping,” Wai Phyo said.
“We don’t need them here,” he said, adding: “We need proper aid.”
The Reuters news agency also reported that rescue workers in Mandalay had to borrow machinery from private businesses to help shift debris, and some residents had taken to Facebook to appeal for donations of equipment to aid the rescue efforts.
Rescue operations in the city are now turning to recovery as the time window to save survivors closes, Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng reported from Mandalay.
“I was just speaking to the fire chief who is leading this operation about the revised figure of 1,000 fatalities across Myanmar and he simply said there are a thousand bodies in this city alone, which suggests those numbers are going to rise, and rise steeply,” Cheng said.
‘Working around the clock’
In Thailand’s capital Bangkok, rescue efforts are focused on a collapsed 30-storey building, which was under construction at the time the earthquake hit and where dozens of workers are believed to be under the ruins.
At least 10 people died in Bangkok on Friday despite the city being more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the epicentre in Myanmar.
“It’s hard to locate the missing,” said Atikom Watkoson, a rescue worker at the scene of what was to be a multistorey government building in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district.
The search has been complicated by the fact there is no clear indication where in the building the estimated 47 missing workers were when it collapsed on Friday, Atikom Watkoson told Al Jazeera.
But sign of survivors have been detected and heavy machinery has been brought in to help clear the mountain of debris from the site, he said.
Still, “there is a lot of work left to get through,” Atikom Watkoson added.
Across Bangkok, engineers and government officials are now inspecting the integrity of the city’s hundreds of skyscrapers, with residents of many high-rise buildings reporting cracks in walls and floors.
“It’s all high-rise buildings in Bangkok’s city centre,” said Sirin Hiranthanakasem, a resident in the capital who fled down 23 flights of stairs when the earthquake struck and is now staying in a hotel, too afraid to return to her apartment.
“If something was to collapse, we would not survive,” she said.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has also opened an online portal for people in the capital to report damage to buildings.
Despite the chaos resulting from the earthquake on Friday and the Bangkok authorities declaring the city a disaster zone, the Thai capital has quickly returned to normal with the city’s airports functioning and light rail system back up and running, with most shops and restaurants back in operation.
Still, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minster Anutin Charnvirakul said all possible resources have been deployed to search for survivors at the site of the building collapse and recover the bodies of the deceased.
“We always have hope,” he told reporters of the possibility of finding workers alive.
“We’re still working around the clock.”
Nandi Theint reported from Mandalay, Myanmar; Wanpen Pajai reported from Bangkok, Thailand.
