Death toll continues to climb across Myanmar and Thailand after quake

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Rescuers are racing against time to find survivors in the ruins of a Bangkok high rise building. The structure collapsed when a 7.7 earthquake hit Thailand and Myanmar on Friday, killing more than 1,600 people.

Transcript

00:00Here you can see the full scale of this enormous rescue operation.

00:07There's everything from paramedics and specialist rescuers all the way through to local businesses

00:14and volunteer organisations that have set up to keep everyone fed and hydrated because

00:19it is punishingly hot here in Bangkok and this rescue operation has not stopped since

00:26this disaster first occurred around lunchtime on Friday. There are also

00:33dozens and dozens of people who have gathered here to find out, to wait really, to find out

00:39the fate of their loved ones who they fear trapped under the building. We've had a chat to a few of

00:44them. Here's what they had to say. I came to look for my brother. He's stuck inside. I think he was

00:53on 26th floor. I feel miserable and my mum keeps crying. She's at home now at her room and she's

01:02crying all the time. When she came she also cried. Around 20 minutes past one the building started

01:12to bend and I heard a very loud noise like a ceiling, like a big block of ceiling falling

01:17down. It was so loud and people started to run away. I was on the fifth floor. I think I was the

01:23last one that made it out from the building. A lot of old people inside that they could not make it.

01:30It's an extremely arduous and complicated rescue operation. As one of the rescuers described to us

01:37the building really pancaked down on itself and he said inside it's really a mess of concrete

01:44obviously but also steel and mirrors as well. The other thing that they're dealing with is that now

01:50obviously it's an extremely unstable structure so there's a lot of work to be done to make sure that

01:56while they are trying to clear away the concrete and other debris with the excavators that you can

02:02see they've employed they don't do anything that will put those rescue workers in further danger.

02:09Now this operation has been going non-stop since it first occurred on Friday around lunchtime here

02:18local Thai time and it looks like it could continue now for some days even weeks.

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