A powerful earthquake struck central Myanmar on Friday, gouging open roads, toppling century-old religious monuments and destroying multistory buildings as it shook a vast expanse of Southeast Asia and dealt another severe blow to a country that has been ripped apart by civil war.
While the death toll remains unclear, expert estimates warned it could be extraordinary, given the dense population and vulnerable structures near the epicenter, just outside Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. Modeling by the United States Geological Survey estimated that the death toll was likely to surpass 10,000, and that there was a strong possibility of a much higher toll.
A preliminary count from Myanmar’s military government said that at least 144 people had been killed and 732 injured in just three cities — but that did not include Mandalay.
The quake, measured by the U.S.G.S. at magnitude 7.7, was strong enough that it leveled a 33-story building that was under construction more than 600 miles away in Bangkok, in neighboring Thailand. At least eight people were confirmed dead there, and dozens more were missing, according to the authorities. They were all presumed to be members of the 320-person crew of workers who were putting up the new building for the Thai government.
The earthquake, which struck at about 12:50 p.m. local time, was only the third of its size to hit the region in the past century, and the U.S.G.S. analysis placed the epicenter just 10 miles from the heart of Mandalay, a city of about 1.5 million people. An aftershock of magnitude 6.7 was recorded about 11 minutes later, the first of several sizable tremors that followed the first one.
The shaking was felt as far away as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand and southern China, where state news media reported that an unspecified number of people had been injured in Ruili, near the Myanmar border. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of Thailand declared Bangkok an “area of emergency” and urged residents to evacuate tall buildings in case of aftershocks.
In Myanmar, as bleeding victims rushed to hospitals by ambulance, car and motorbike, a surgeon at Mandalay General Hospital said that so many people had arrived for treatment that nurses had run out of cotton swabs and that he had nowhere to stand.
“More injured people keep arriving, but we do not have enough doctors and nurses,” said the surgeon, Dr. Kyaw Zin. Because phone lines were down, he said, he was unsure if his parents had survived.
“But I can’t go back home yet,” he said. “I have to save lives here first.”
Dozens of patients at the hospital — the main medical center in Mandalay — fled the building when it jolted and shuddered, jamming together in a nearby parking lot.
Some patients were still connected to intravenous drips and oxygen tanks. Others had their heads and arms bandaged and were lined up on stretchers, moaning. Many more were lying on cardboard, or directly on the concrete in the 100-degree heat.
Outside the hospital, Daw Kyi Shwin, 45, who was bleeding heavily, said that her 3-year-old daughter had been killed when their house began to collapse while they were having lunch. “I tried to run to her,” she said, “but before I could, bricks fell on me, too.”
Photos and videos from Myanmar showed scenes of stunning devastation. The Ava Bridge, a giant metal span, had partially collapsed into the Irrawaddy River. In Mandalay, monks in reddish robes cried out in shock as a multistory building at the New Masoeyein monastery fell near a toppled clock tower.
At a Buddhist monastery in Pindaya, about 70 miles from the epicenter, women wailed as the spire atop a century-old golden dome called a stupa toppled over, one of several that were damaged there. Rescue workers in other parts of the country dug through piles of twisted rebar and jagged concrete where buildings had been destroyed. Among the hard-hit places was Naypyidaw, the capital of the military government, about 150 miles from Mandalay.
The disaster compounded the monumental challenges facing Myanmar’s military rulers, who overthrew an elected government in 2021 and have restricted the country’s contact with the outside world. The junta has been steadily weakened since then, losing ground to rebels amid a bloody civil war that has left nearly 20 million of the country’s roughly 54 million people without enough food or shelter even before the quake, according to U.N. officials.
During past disasters, such as Cyclone Mocha in 2023 and Cyclone Nargis in 2008, Myanmar’s military rulers restricted the flow of international aid to hard-hit areas that were dominated by their foes.
But this time, the junta’s leaders immediately appealed for international help and declared a state of emergency in six regions of the country, news agencies reported, including Mandalay and Naypyidaw.
“We need and want the international community to provide humanitarian aid,” said a military spokesman, Gen. Zaw Min Tun. “We will cooperate with them to ensure the best care for the victims.”
The secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, said the organization was mobilizing to help people in need. The U.N. said it had allocated an initial $5 million from its emergency fund to help lifesaving operations in Myanmar.
President Trump said the United States would also provide assistance to Myanmar. “It’s a real bad one, and we will be helping,” he said in the Oval Office. “We’ve already spoken with the country.”
Aid organizations said that it was difficult to assess the full scope of the damage in many parts of Myanmar because electricity and communication lines were down. In addition, the junta has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut off access to social media, isolating the country.
The crackdown on internet access, intended to stifle dissent, could make it difficult to coordinate the delivery of aid.
The military has ruled Myanmar oppressively for most of the time since 1962; and even during periods of limited liberalization, the armed forces remained a major political power.
Michael Martin, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the military could slow the delivery of supplies, deny visas to relief workers or direct more aid to areas nominally under its control, shortchanging areas under opposition control.
Mr. Martin said it was unclear to what extent the United States would help, given the Trump administration’s hostility to foreign aid programs and major cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Even before the quake, Myanmar’s health care system had been pushed to its limits. The junta has cracked down on doctors and nurses, who have been at the forefront of a civil disobedience movement opposed to the regime. Myanmar is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a health worker, according to the New York-based Physicians for Human Rights.
Backed by military and financial support from China, India, Russia and Thailand, the junta controls about 20 percent of Myanmar, mainly urban areas. Its leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has been accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
The military has persecuted ethnic minorities, and this month arrested the leader of an armed group that has sought to protect Rohingya Muslims from a scorched-earth campaign of arson, mass rape and killing that the United States has called genocide.
In Bangkok, rescue workers were toiling into the night after the 33-story building collapsed. Video of the collapse showed panicked construction workers running for safety and people on the street scrambling for cover, as a thick cloud of dust quickly enveloped the scene.
About 70 people were taken to local hospitals and two people were rescued from the rubble. Hours later, rescue workers and dogs searched for survivors amid fears that scores of people had been buried in the collapse.
In Mandalay, as the night deepened, terrified residents dragged mattresses and mosquito nets onto the streets to sleep. Others planned to spend the night in their cars. Many were too scared to return to their homes.
Myanmar is in one of the world’s most seismically active regions, where the Eurasian and Indian plates of the Earth’s crust grind against each other. In 2011, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in eastern Myanmar killed more than 70 people and shattered hundreds of buildings.
Sui-Lee Wee and Richard C. Paddock reported from Bangkok, John Yoon from Seoul and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Muktita Suhartono, Pablo Robles, Agnes Chang, Jenny Gross, Lara Jakes, Adam Satariano, Paul Mozur, Keith Bradsher and Vivian Wang.
