1,000-Bed Myanmar Hospital Is “Mass Casualty Area” After 7.7 Earthquake

Arun Jain,


New Delhi:

A 1,000-bed hospital in Myanmar capital Naypyidaw is a likely “mass casualty area”, news agency AFP said Friday afternoon after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Sagaing, which is 260km away. There is no confirmation on the number of dead at the hospital, but 20 have been reported from across the country, including 10 at a mosque that collapsed in Mandalay while people were praying.

The hospital – which has not yet been named – is one of the biggest in the city, AFP said.

AFP said scenes from outside the building showed injured people being treated on the streets, with intravenous drips hanging from gurneys as family and loved ones comforted them. “I haven’t seen (something) like this before. We are trying to handle it but I’m so exhausted,” a doctor said.

AFP said “a stream of casualties” were also arriving at the hospital, which itself was heavily damaged; a car was crushed under the heavy concrete of its fallen entrance.

Across Myanmar the earthquake also damaged residential buildings in Mandalay and destroyed the old bridge over the Irrawaddy River. A monastery on the border with Thailand was also destroyed.

After the initial earthquake, tremors were felt as far away as northern Thailand, where some metro services were suspended in Bangkok; one video showed a metro, stopped at the platform, shaking violently. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has declared a state of ’emergency’ in the city.

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Also, 78 people were trapped after an under-construction 30-floor building in Bangkok’s Chatuchak collapsed entirely. The building – intended for government offices – was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds, footage on social media showed. Three deaths have been reported.

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“When I arrived to inspect the site, I heard people calling for help, saying help me,” Worapat Sukthai, Deputy Police Chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP. “We estimate that hundreds of people are injured but we are still determining the number of casualties,” he added.

China’s Yunnan province also reported strong tremors; the China Earthquake Networks Center said the magnitude was 7.9. And mild tremors were also reported from Kolkata in Bengal and parts of Manipur, as well as Dhaka and Chattogram in Bangladesh, news agency PTI said.

Terrifying videos on X showed buildings shaking in Bangkok and other cities, with people running onto the streets in panic. “I heard it… I was sleeping in the house and then I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,” Duangjai, a resident of popular tourist city Chiang Mai, told AFP.

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In Myanmar, an old bridge over the Irrawaddy River and some residential buildings collapsed, with images from Mandalay (around 24km from Sagaing) suggesting more people may be trapped.

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Other videos showed extensive damage to the airport in Mandalay and to a monastery near the city of Taunggyi, in Myanmar’s Shan State that is on the border to Thailand.

With input from agencies

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