DESPERATE

Crew stuck in Bangkok high-rise hell | Myanmar crisis as toll passes 2,000

- DAN WARBURTON

HOPE was fading last night for dozens of construction workers trapped beneath the rubble of a quake-hit tower block in Bangkok.

Officials revealed rescuers had been unable to detect "more vital signs" from within the wreckage of the State Audit Office in the Thai capital's northern Chatuchak district.

It came more than three days after Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake toppled the under-construction 33-storey building and buried 80 workers.

Pictures taken by the Mirror yesterday showed Thai rescue teams - alongside Israeli military, US Special Forces and Turkish earthquake experts from the 2023 disaster that killed 55,000 - combing a section of the site.

But four rescuers emerged carrying what appeared to be a body on a stretcher.

It brought the death toll to at least 13 eight men and five women.

It came as children in Myanmar were seen on beds at Mandalay General Hospital, with other patients lying outside in its compound. The nation bore the brunt of the quake that has now claimed more than 2,000 lives.

Some residents spent a third night sleeping in the open as crews attempt to find possible survivors.

Bangkok deputy governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers detected one individual but "unfortunately it's the dead body" that was carried out.

She confirmed there was a "lower chance for a survivor" to be found as the crucial 72-hour point had passed.

The bodies of three people were returned to their family in Nong Khai city in North East Thailand yesterday.