A pow­er­ful earth­quake rocked Myan­mar and neigh­bor­ing Thai­land on Fri­day, de­stroy­ing build­ings, a bridge and a dam. At least 144 peo­ple were killed in Myan­mar, where pho­tos and video from two hard-hit cities showed ex­ten­sive dam­age. At least eight died in the Thai cap­i­tal, where a high-rise un­der con­struc­tion col­lapsed.

The 7.7 mag­ni­tude quake, with an epi­cen­ter near Man­dalay, Myan­mar‘s sec­ond largest city, struck at mid­day and was fol­lowed by a strong 6.4 mag­ni­tude af­ter­shock.

The full ex­tent of death, in­jury and de­struc­tion was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear — par­tic­u­lar­ly in Myan­mar, one of the world’s poor­est coun­tries. It is em­broiled in a civ­il war and in­for­ma­tion is tight­ly con­trolled.

The head of Myan­mar’s mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment said in the tele­vised speech on Fri­day evening that at least 144 peo­ple were killed and 730 oth­ers were in­jured.

“The death toll and in­juries are ex­pect­ed to rise,” Se­nior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said.

Pho­tos from the cap­i­tal of Naypyi­daw showed mul­ti­ple build­ings used to house civ­il ser­vants de­stroyed by the quake, and res­cue crews pulling vic­tims from the rub­ble.

Myan­mar’s gov­ern­ment said blood was in high de­mand in the hard­est-hit ar­eas. Im­ages of buck­led and cracked roads in Man­dalay and dam­aged high­ways as well as the col­lapse of a bridge and dam raised fur­ther con­cerns about how res­cuers would even reach some ar­eas in a coun­try al­ready en­dur­ing a wide­spread hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

Near Bangkok’s pop­u­lar Chatuchak mar­ket, a 33-sto­ry build­ing un­der con­struc­tion, with a crane on top, crum­pled in­to a cloud of dust, and on­look­ers could be seen scream­ing and run­ning in a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia.

The sound of sirens echoed through­out cen­tral Bangkok and ve­hi­cles filled the streets, leav­ing some of the city’s al­ready con­gest­ed streets grid­locked. The el­e­vat­ed rapid tran­sit sys­tem and sub­way shut down.

While the area where the quake struck is prone to earth­quakes, they are usu­al­ly not so big and it is rare for them to be felt in the Thai cap­i­tal, which sits on a riv­er delta and is at mod­er­ate risk for quakes.

April Kanichawanakul, who works in an of­fice build­ing in Bangkok, ini­tial­ly didn’t even re­al­ize it was an earth­quake, the first she’d ever ex­pe­ri­enced. “I just thought I was dizzy,” she said.

She and her col­leagues ran down­stairs from the 10th floor of their build­ing and wait­ed out­side for a sig­nal that it was safe to go back in.

Crane-topped build­ing col­lapsed in a cloud of dust

In Bangkok, at least three peo­ple were killed in the build­ing col­lapse and 90 were miss­ing, ac­cord­ing to De­fense Min­is­ter Phumtham Wechay­achai. He of­fered no more de­tails about the on­go­ing res­cue ef­forts but first re­spon­ders said that sev­en peo­ple had been res­cued so far from the area.

At least two of the dead were con­struc­tion work­ers who were killed by falling rub­ble or de­bris, res­cue work­er Song­wut Wang­pon told re­porters. The build­ing was be­ing built by the Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion for Thai­land’s gov­ern­ment au­di­tor gen­er­al.

Else­where, peo­ple in Bangkok evac­u­at­ed from their build­ings were cau­tioned to stay out­side in case there were more af­ter­shocks.

The U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey and Ger­many’s GFZ cen­ter for geo­sciences said the earth­quake was a shal­low 10 kilo­me­ters (6.2 miles), ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary re­ports.

Bangkok’s city hall de­clared the city a dis­as­ter area to fa­cil­i­tate the re­sponse. The greater met­ro­pol­i­tan area is home to more than 17 mil­lion peo­ple, many of whom live in high-rise apart­ments.

“All of a sud­den the whole build­ing be­gan to move. Im­me­di­ate­ly there was scream­ing and a lot of pan­ic,” said Fras­er Mor­ton, a tourist from Scot­land, who was in one of Bangkok’s many malls.

“I just start­ed walk­ing calm­ly at first but then the build­ing start­ed re­al­ly mov­ing, yeah, a lot of scream­ing, a lot of pan­ic, peo­ple run­ning the wrong way down the es­ca­la­tors.”

Like Mor­ton, thou­sands of peo­ple poured in­to Ben­jasiri Park from near­by shop­ping malls, high ris­es and apart­ment build­ings along Bangkok’s busy Sukhumvit Road.

Many were on phones try­ing to reach loved ones as oth­ers sought shade from the hot ear­ly af­ter­noon sun.

Vo­ra­noot Thi­rawat, a lawyer work­ing in cen­tral Bangkok, said her first in­di­ca­tion that some­thing was wrong came when she saw a light swing­ing back and forth. Then she heard the build­ing creak­ing as it moved back and forth.

She and her col­leagues ran down 12 flights of stairs. “In my life­time, there was no earth­quake like this in Bangkok,” she said.

Paul Vin­cent, a tourist vis­it­ing from Eng­land, was at a street­side bar when the quake struck.

As he came on­to the street him­self, he said he saw a high-rise build­ing sway­ing and wa­ter falling from a rooftop pool.

“There was peo­ple cry­ing in the streets and, you know, the pan­ic was hor­ren­dous re­al­ly,” he said.

Bridge and monastery col­lapse and dam bursts in Myan­mar

In Man­dalay, the earth­quake re­port­ed­ly brought down mul­ti­ple build­ings, in­clud­ing the Ma Soe Yane monastery, one of the largest in the city, and dam­aged the for­mer roy­al palace. Mean­while, Chris­t­ian Aid said its part­ners and col­leagues on the ground re­port­ed that a dam burst in the city, caus­ing wa­ter lev­els to rise in the low­land ar­eas in the area.

A video post­ed on­line showed robed monks in the street shoot­ing video of the mul­ti­sto­ry monastery be­fore it sud­den­ly fell in­to the ground. It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear whether any­one was harmed.

In the Sagaing re­gion just south­west of the city, a 90-year-old bridge col­lapsed, and some sec­tions of the high­way con­nect­ing Man­dalay and Myan­mar’s largest city, Yan­gon, were al­so dam­aged.

The mil­i­tary seized pow­er from the elect­ed gov­ern­ment of Aung San Suu Kyi in Feb­ru­ary 2021, and is now in­volved in a bloody civ­il war with long-es­tab­lished mili­tias and new­ly formed pro-democ­ra­cy ones.

Gov­ern­ment forces have lost con­trol of much of Myan­mar, and many places are in­cred­i­bly dan­ger­ous to ac­cess or sim­ply out of reach for aid groups. More than 3 mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed by the fight­ing and near­ly 20 mil­lion are in need, ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions.

The Red Cross said downed pow­er lines added to chal­lenges for their teams try­ing to reach sev­er­al hard-hit ar­eas.

“This dis­as­ter will have left peo­ple dev­as­tat­ed and in need of drink­ing wa­ter, food and shel­ter,” said Julie Mehi­gan, head of Asia, Mid­dle East & Eu­rope for Chris­t­ian Aid. “Myan­mar is one of the least de­vel­oped coun­tries in the world. Even be­fore this heart­break­ing earth­quake, we know con­flict and dis­place­ment has left count­less peo­ple in re­al need.”

Myan­mar’s gov­ern­ment de­clared a state of emer­gency in six re­gions and states in­clud­ing the cap­i­tal Naypy­itaw and Man­dalay. It was not clear what the de­c­la­ra­tion meant since the en­tire coun­try has been un­der a state of emer­gency since 2021.

Res­i­dents in Yan­gon rushed out of their homes when the quake struck. In the cap­i­tal Naypy­itaw, the quake dam­aged some homes and re­li­gious shrines, send­ing parts top­pling to the ground.

In­juries re­port­ed in Chi­na

To the north­east, the earth­quake was felt in Yun­nan and Sichuan provinces in Chi­na and caused dam­age to hous­es and in­juries in the city of Ruili on the bor­der with Myan­mar, ac­cord­ing to Chi­nese me­dia re­ports.

Videos that one out­let said it had re­ceived from a per­son in Ruili showed build­ing de­bris lit­ter­ing a street and a per­son be­ing wheeled in a stretch­er to­ward an am­bu­lance.

The shak­ing in Mang­shi, a Chi­nese city about 100 kilo­me­ters (60 miles) north­east of Ruili, was so strong that peo­ple couldn’t stand, one res­i­dent told The Pa­per, an on­line me­dia out­let.

Adam Schreck, Haru­ka Na­ga, Jer­ry Harmer, Grant Peck and Pen­ny Wang in Bangkok, Jamey Keat­en in Gene­va and Ken Morit­sugu in Bei­jing con­tributed to this re­port.

By DAVID RIS­ING and JIN­TA­MAS SAK­SORN­CHAI

BANGKOK (AP)