By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

After the Quake

Bangkok ground to a halt on March 28 after a strong earthquake shook the clogged Thai capital, causing chaos and triggering city-wide evacuations that left many thousands of people stranded for much of the day.

All urban rail systems were suspended, and roads were gridlocked across one of Asia's biggest cities after the quake in neighboring Myanmar caused tremors up to a magnitude of 7.1 in Bangkok, about 1,020km from the epicenter of the earthquake.

Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing (in green) arrived to meet earthquake survivors gathered in the compound of a hospital in Naypyitaw on March 28.

The quake killed nine people in Bangkok, including eight laborers who died after the collapse of a 33-story building that was under construction. Rescuers with dogs searched for signs of life, with more than 100 missing at the site, the authorities said.

The 7.7-magnitude tremor hit northwest of the city of Sagaing at a shallow depth around lunchtime, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. A 6.4-magnitude aftershock hit the same area minutes later.

Earlier in the day, at least 20 people were confirmed dead at a 1,000-bed hospital in Naypyitaw.

The rare plea from the junta raises the prospect that damage and casualties may be on a large scale, with Myanmar’s medical system and infrastructure ravaged by four years of civil war.

A US government predictive analysis based on the strength and depth of the earthquake estimated there could be between 10,000 and 100,000 deaths and severe economic loss, with the Sagaing and Meiktila regions worst hit.

In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, bleeding victims were rushed to the hospital by ambulance, car, and motorbike.

Buildings were left in ruins, and a doctor at Mandalay General Hospital said so many people arrived for treatment that nurses ran out of cotton swabs, and he had no place to stand.

At least three people were killed in Taungoo city, in Myanmar’s Bago region, when a mosque partially collapsed, witnesses said, while local media reported that two people died and 20 were injured after a hotel collapsed in Aung Ban town, in Shan state.

In Bangkok, a 30-story building under construction collapsed.

At least nine people were killed, and dozens of workers were rescued from under the rubble of the skyscraper, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said.

Rescuers were seeking to free 81 more people still trapped in the building’s ruins.

The massive building intended for government offices was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds, footage shared on social media showed.

The Yangon Times reported that the air traffic control tower at the airport in Naypyitaw collapsed, killing everyone inside.

Several ministry buildings in Naypyitaw, including those housing the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Labor, likewise collapsed, killing many, including the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Labor, according to the newspaper.

A team of journalists was at the National Museum in Naypyitaw when the earthquake struck. Pieces fell from the ceiling as the building began shaking. Uniformed staff ran outside, some trembling and tearful, others grabbing cell phones to try to contact loved ones.

Roads nearby were buckled and broken by the tremors, and the route to one of the city’s biggest hospitals was jammed with traffic.

The hospital was a “mass casualty area” after the quake, officials said.

An ambulance made its way between vehicles, with a paramedic shouting, “Cars, move aside so the ambulance can get through”.

At the hospital, the wounded were being treated in the street outside, intravenous drips hanging from their gurneys.

Some writhed in pain, while others lay still as relatives sought to comfort them.

As night fell, journalists saw rescuers trying to extract a mother and son from the ruins of a collapsed building in Naypyitaw.

Both were seriously injured, but rescuers were unable to reach them, a Red Cross.

The tremors sent people across Myanmar and Thailand into the streets.

“I heard it, and I was sleeping in the house. I ran as far as I could in my pajamas out of the building,” said a resident of the popular northern Thailand tourist city of Chiang Mai.

People gathered outside an office building in Bangkok on March 28 after the earthquake.

Social media posts from Mandalay showed collapsed buildings and debris strewn across the city’s streets.

One witness in the city told Reuters: “We all ran out of the house as everything started shaking. I witnessed a five-story building collapse before my eyes. Everyone in my town is out on the road, and no one dares to go back inside buildings.”

The quake forced the suspension of some metro and light rail services in Bangkok, where Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was reported to have declared a state of emergency.

In Hanoi, Vietnam, hundreds of people rushed out of high-rise buildings after feeling the tremors.

The chandeliers were swinging strongly,” said Vy Nguyen, who works in an office building in central Ho Chi Minh City. She said it sounded as though the windows were cracking.

“One of my guests crawled under the table while I remained standing. I am still feeling dizzy now,” she said.

Tremors were also felt in Penang, Malaysia.

“I was in the middle of typing an article when I unexpectedly experienced vertigo. At first, I thought I was feeling dizzy as it only lasted a few seconds, so I continued working,” said Bulletin Mutiara writer M. Thanushalini, 38.

“It was only later, after learning about the earthquake, that I connected the dots,” she said.

Penang Economic Planning Unit assistant secretary Zeulqarnain Wahid, 33, said she also felt her building swaying.

“The Hari Raya decorative lights in our office began to sway, and I felt light-headed. Several colleagues also mentioned feeling the same, and we realized it was unusual,” she said.

 

Seismic waves reached as far as China, Cambodia, Bangladesh and India.

A live-stream broadcast by the state-linked Beijing News showed around a dozen emergency workers in orange jumpsuits and helmets on a street strewn with fallen masonry in the city of Ruili, at the Chinese border with Myanmar.

A shop worker interviewed on the live stream showed phone footage of people running out of stores with their hands over their heads as tremors swept through the street.

A video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, showed a torrent of water and debris cascading from the roof of a high-rise block in Ruili as people fled through a street market below.

Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, where six strong quakes of 7 magnitude or more struck between 1930 and 1956 near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north to south through the center of the country, according to the USGS.

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake in the ancient capital Bagan in central Myanmar killed three people in 2016, also toppling spires and crumbling temple walls at the tourist destination.

The breakneck pace of development in Myanmar’s cities, combined with crumbling infrastructure and poor urban planning, has also made the country’s most populous areas vulnerable to earthquakes and other disasters, experts say.

The impoverished South-east Asian nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.

People who evacuated from buildings following earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Chutima Lalit)

Rescuers walk at the site of a high-rise building under construction that collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Hospital patients lay on beds outdoors after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

People who evacuated from buildings following earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Chutima Lalit)

People wait to be told it is safe to go back inside the Sathorn Gardens condominium building after an earthquake in Bangkok on Friday, March 28, 2025.

 

 

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