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A man was pulled alive from the rubble of a Myanmar hotel on Wednesday, officials said, five days after a devastating earthquake hit the country.
Commuters drive past a building that collapsed, in the aftermath of a strong earthquake, in Mandalay, Myanmar. (IMAGE: REUTERS)
Nearly five days after a horrific and devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar, a man was pulled ‘alive’ from the rubble of a hotel on Wednesday, fire service officials said.
The 26-year-old was freed by a joint team of Myanmar and Turkish rescuers from the ruins of the building in the capital Naypyidaw around 12:30 am (1800 GMT on Tuesday), AFP reported.
This comes after rescue workers on Tuesday saved a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in Myanmar’s capital. According to reports, the violent earthquake killed more than 2,700 people, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing.
The figures are widely expected to rise. The earthquake hit a wide swath of the country, leaving many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, leaving the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.
Most of the reports so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicentre of the earthquake, and Naypyitaw.
Meanwhile, the country has also suffered an extensive structural damage. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that more than 10,000 buildings overall are known to have collapsed or been severely damaged in central and northwest Myanmar.
The earthquake also rocked neighbouring Thailand, causing a high-rise building under construction to collapse and burying many workers.
In Myanmar, search and rescue efforts across the affected area paused briefly at midday on Tuesday as people stood for a minute in silent tribute to the dead.
The Myanmar military government’s official Global New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday reported that a team of Chinese rescuers saved four people the day before from the ruins of the Sky Villa, a large apartment complex that collapsed during the quake.
They included a 5-year-old and a pregnant woman who had been trapped for more than 60 hours.
- Location :
Myanmar (Burma)
