MANDALAY: More than 90 people could be trapped inside the crushed remains of an apartment block in Mandalay in central Myanmar destroyed by a devastating earthquake, a Red Cross official told AFP on Saturday as rescuers worked to free the victims.
The Sky Villa Condominium development is among the buildings in Mandalay that were worst hit by Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, with several of its 12 storeys pancaked one on top of the other.
“Nine people are dead and 44 have been extracted alive,“ the Red Cross official at the scene told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“More than 90 people could be inside. We are still collecting data as people keep informing us they are looking for their missing family members.”
The quake has killed more than 1,000 people in Myanmar but communications are badly disrupted and the true scale of the disaster is only beginning to emerge.
It is the country’s biggest quake in decades and Mandalay, the second-largest city, with a population of over 1.7 million, has been badly hit.
The Sky Villa Condo’s 12 storeys were reduced to six by the quake, the cracked pastel green walls of the upper floors perched on the crushed remains of the lower levels.
A women’s body stuck out of the wreckage, her arm and hair hanging down.
Rescuers clambered over the ruins painstakingly removing pieces of rubble and wreckage by hand as they sought to open up passageways to those trapped inside.
