BANGKOK — The death toll from a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar has risen sharply to over 1,600, with fears it could climb much higher, state-run MRTV reported Saturday, as rescuers scrambled through rubble and desperate cries for help echoed from collapsed buildings.
The quake, whose epicenter was near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, devastated one of the world’s poorest nations as it reverberated through the country and across Southeast Asia.
The earthquake occurred around 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday, and it was followed 11 minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock. At 3:50 p.m. local time on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded another 5.1-magnitude earthquake near the capital Naypyidaw, about 160 miles south of Mandalay.
In neighboring Thailand, several people have been confirmed killed following Friday’s quake, with dozens more missing, many of them trapped in the debris of a 30-story building in Bangkok. Dramatic footage showed a massive plume of smoke as the building collapsed, with construction workers scrambling to escape — some swallowed by a thick dust cloud.
According to the city’s governor, Chadchart Sittipunt, rescuers could detect signs of life from about 15 people under the rubble, as crews continued to race against time Saturday to uncover survivors.
The search-and-rescue operation has involved crews from the police, military and disaster relief, using drones, dogs and heavy equipment to search through the mountain of rubble, concrete, steel, dirt and rebar.
The painstaking work has been underway for more than 24 hours, peeling back layers of debris in the hope of finding any of the dozens believed to be trapped underneath. Even as the hope of survival fades, the crews plan to work through the night.
NBC News witnessed one body being recovered earlier Saturday. Heavy equipment was used to remove a large chunk of rebar and concrete, which exposed a small pocket where the recovery team found the body.
Further complicating both the rescue and potential survival are high temperatures in Bangkok, reaching around 100 degrees for most of the day.
In Myanmar, a reclusive state run by a military government that tightly controls information, there are limited details on the full scale of death and destruction. In one video verified by NBC News, a group of monks in vermillion robes, crouched beside the crumbled remains of a clock tower, watch as another building collapses in the distance.
Another clip captures the moment the golden peak of a Buddhist monastery crumbled into pieces in Pindaya, and images showed hospitals overwhelmed with the injured, as well as widespread damage to buildings across Myanmar.
With rescue and recovery operations ongoing, the BBC’s Burmese service reported the sounds of people screaming from within the debris of a collapsed high-rise in Mandalay, where about 50 people had already been pulled from the rubble.
Myanmar’s military government declared a state of emergency in multiple regions, including Mandalay and Naypyidaw, and said search-and-rescue operations were underway in the hardest-hit areas.
“The full extent of destruction caused by this earthquake may not be clear for weeks,” Mohammed Riyas, the International Rescue Committee director for Myanmar, said in a statement Friday.
The disaster is further compounded by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, which has raged for four years — limiting access to aid, straining resources and leaving millions already in crisis even before the earthquake hit.
According to the International Rescue Committee, Myanmar has more than 19 million people in urgent need of humanitarian aid, with many displaced, facing food insecurity and suffering from a health care system crippled by conflict.
“The added stress of meeting the needs of those injured in this earthquake will place an unparalleled strain on already stretched resources,” Riyas warned.
Using a predictive analysis based on the strength and depth of the earthquake, the USGS estimated that a death toll over 10,000 is a strong possibility, and that economic losses could be greater than the country’s gross domestic product. According to Myanmar state media, as of Saturday afternoon local time, 3,408 people were recorded as injured and another 139 missing.
Amid concerns about aid delays following cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development under President Donald Trump, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce insisted Friday that funding reductions had “no impact” on the United States’ ability to respond, but that no formal request for assistance had yet been received.
“We stand ready, and we will be ready when the requests emerge,” Bruce said.
Trump said Friday that he had spoken with officials in Myanmar, and that the U.S. would be providing some form of assistance.
Myanmar’s ruling military general, Min Aung Hlaing, has invited “any country” to provide help and donations, adding that he had opened routes for international assistance and had accepted offers of help from India and ASEAN, the bloc of Southeast Asian nations.
Deepmala Mahla, chief humanitarian officer at CARE, urged the international community to unite in support for those impacted.
“The situation is devastating, and the scale is massive,” she told Sky News, NBC News’ international broadcasting partner, in an interview on Saturday.
“We critically need many things including medical supplies like bandages antibiotics, surgical equipment,” she said, noting that damage to roads and bridges was making providing aid “even more hard and complicated.”
Russia says it has already mobilized aid, with its emergency ministry dispatching two planes carrying 120 rescuers and supplies, according to state news agency TASS.
The Chinese Embassy said in a Facebook post that a 37-strong team had landed in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, bringing medicine and equipment to detect signs of life.
The USGS said the earthquake struck due to “strike slip faulting” between the India and Eurasia tectonic plates, meaning the plates rubbed sideways against each other.
Rebecca Bell, a tectonics expert at Imperial College London, said it may have occurred along the Sagaing Fault, a long, straight fault line with movement similar to California’s San Andreas Fault.
Earthquakes on these types of continental faults “can be particularly destructive, as the earthquake rupture is often very shallow, causing a lot of shaking at the surface,” Bell explained. “Their continental nature means population centers can be located very close to the fault.”
The region has a history of powerful quakes.
Since 1990, six other magnitude-7 or larger earthquakes have struck within 150 miles of Friday’s quake, according to the USGS. In 1988, another 7.7-magnitude earthquake killed dozens.
CORRECTION (March 29, 2025, 11:31 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misidentified the organization Mohammed Riyas works for. It is the International Rescue Committee, not the International Red Cross.
Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Bangkok and Freddie Clayton from London.
