I must have hope'

Pluem, 18, had been working for just a month at the construction site in Bangkok's Chatuchak district. It was her first job since leaving her family home.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

Pluem, 18, had been working for just a month at the construction site in Bangkok's Chatuchak district. It was her first job since leaving her family home. "She found the work because she wanted to live on her own," said her mother, Wanpetch Punta, 38. Pluem was hired as an electrician on the 30-storey construction, which was to become an office for the city's auditor-general.

On Friday, when tremors from the earthquake in neighboring Myanmar reached the Thai capital, the entire block collapsed in an instant. Eleven people are confirmed to have died in the disaster. Rescue workers were frantically searching for 78 others who remain missing.

Families, including Pluem's, sit on mats and plastic chairs nearby, clasping phones and waiting desperately for news.

A perimeter of metal fencing has been set up to cordon off the search and rescue efforts, but it is not tall enough to mask the towering heap of concrete slabs and twisted metal bars. The floor is covered in dust. Every so often, a boom is heard as debris is tipped away.