Their heads bowed low, four rescue workers soaked in grief emerged from the wreckage of the quake-hit Bangkok tower at just after 6pm today.

In their grasp was a stretcher on which appeared to lay the latest victim of the devastating 7.7-magnitude shock which reduced the State Audit Office to rubble. It was nearly 80 hours after the earthquake in neighbouring Myanmar - where 1,700 people were killed - had caused the 33-storey building to crumble. The rescue teams have spent three days feverishly working to locate dozens of workers, refusing to give up on those inside.

But as the light faded, so did hope that anyone would be pulled from the ruins of the high-rise block in Bangkok's northern district of Chatuchak. We have watched for hours and days as Thai rescue teams, bolstered by Israeli military, US Special Forces and Turkish earthquake experts from the 2023 disaster which killed 55,000, worked to free stricken workers inside. Every press update and every statement from city officials has been drenched in optimism.

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At every turn they had indicated there were signs of life inside the remnants of the building, which pancaked in upon itself on Friday just after 1pm. Such is the way of a nation that resolutely believes in hope. In an incredible display of their generosity and warmth, hundreds of local people had turned out to hand out free meals and cooling drinks as the 30 degree heat blazed down. Lorries carrying the twisted wreckage of cranes, crushed like pipe-cleaners in the disaster, and boulders of dusty concrete have been ferried from the site over the weekend.

Each load has kicked dust up into the faces of the hundreds of bystanders watching on, but they have refused to leave. Family members have vowed to stay, watching as diggers, drones and sniffer dogs hunted for signs of their loved ones. But by midday it emerged rescuers had been unable to detect "more vital signs" from those trapped in the rubble, according to Bangkok deputy governor Tavida Kamolvej. And the latest lifeless body marked a blow to the Thai people who have desperately hoped against hope that the news would be more positive.