Rescue efforts mount as Myanmar toll over 1,600

Final number of casualties could be over 10,000

- REUTERS

MYANMAR'S MILITARY RULERS let in hundreds of foreign rescue personnel on Saturday after an earthquake killed over 1,600 people, the AFP reported on Saturday, citing the country's military junta. This is the deadliest natural disaster to hit the impoverished, war-torn country in years. Friday's 7.7 magnitude quake, among the biggest to jolt the Southeast Asian nation in the last century, crippled airports, bridges and highways amid a civil war that has wrecked the economy and displaced millions.

In neighboring Thailand, where the quake rattled buildings and brought down a skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, at least nine people were killed. Survivors in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-biggest city, dug with their bare hands on Friday in desperate attempts to save those still trapped, lacking heavy machinery and with authorities absent.

In Bangkok on Saturday, rescue operations continued at the site of the 33-storey tower's collapse, where 47 people were missing or trapped under the rubble—including workers from Myanmar.