Significant quakes are extremely rare in Bangkok, and Friday’s tremors sent shoppers and workers rushing into the street in alarm across the city.
While there was no widespread destruction, the shaking brought some dramatic images of rooftop swimming pools sloshing their contents down the side of many of the city’s towering apartment blocks and hotels.
Even hospitals were evacuated, with one woman delivering her baby outdoors after being moved from a hospital building. A surgeon also continued to operate on a patient after evacuating, completing the operation outside, a spokesman told AFP.
RARE JUNTA PLEA FOR HELP
But the worst of the damage was in Myanmar, where four years of civil war sparked by a military coup have ravaged the healthcare and emergency response systems.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid, indicating the severity of the calamity. Previous military regimes have shunned foreign assistance even after major natural disasters.
The country declared a state of emergency across the six worst-affected regions after the quake, and at one major hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, medics were forced to treat the wounded in the open air.
Source: CNA
