“The quake felt so strong, and lasted really long,” said Wang, who was on the 20th floor of a building in Yangon when the tremor struck and prefers to remain anonymous, to CNN. “The people next to me were all scared to death, me too,” she admitted.

Central Myanmar was struck by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday, as per the United States Geological Survey. Tremors were felt across neighboring countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, and parts of China. In response, Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra convened an emergency meeting.

A resident from Myanmar’s southern city of Yangon described the shaking as lasting for several minutes. “It was excessively shaky and lasted for three to four minutes,” the unnamed resident said. “The building where my house is located was unstable.”

The resident also mentioned that phone lines were down for about 30 minutes after the earthquake, which hit around 12:53 p.m. local time. However, the internet remained functional during the incident.

“I heard it and I was sleeping in the house, I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,” said Duangjai, a resident of Chiang Mai, Thailand, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

In Bangkok, alarms went off in buildings around 1:30 p.m. local time as the earthquake hit. Startled residents quickly evacuated high-rise condominiums and hotels in central Bangkok, descending staircases to reach the streets. Some metro and light rail services were temporarily suspended in the city.

The shaking was so intense that water sloshed out of swimming pools in high-rise buildings, as shown by video footage on social media. “This is the strongest tremor I’ve experienced in my life,” said Sai, a 76-year-old resident of Chiang Mai, who was working at a minimart when the shop began to shake.

The upper trains in Thailand swayed

“I was on the MRT when it happened, and luckily, it stopped at the station,” said a Thai X user by the name MunchkinCat28, who shared a video of people struggling to stay stable as the ground shook. “Everyone quickly ran out, but the station floor was shaking so much that we were really afraid it might collapse, so we rushed to get out.”

Sang Tran, a Vietnamese businessman in Bangkok, recounted: “It [the ground] shook violently, goods in the shopping mall fell all over, and there were loud crashes.”

The mall’s power was cut, and after some time, people were still hesitant to re-enter, according to him.
The aftermath of the earthquake was severe, with a bridge connecting Myanmar’s Ava and Sagaing regions collapsing. A video posted on X showed the collapse of a building under construction at Chatuchak Park in Bangkok.

Emergency services confirmed that 50 people were inside when the building collapsed, and latest reports confirmed that one was dead.

“So many of us were terrified by the quake!” said Zhang Zirui, who was working at his computer in Yangon when the tremor began.