Myanmar Rescuers Issue Appeal for Quick Aid

Exhausted, overwhelmed rescuers in Myanmar's second-biggest city pleaded for help on Saturday as they struggled to free hundreds of people trapped in buildings destroyed by a devastating earthquake.

- Agence France-Presse

MANDALAY: Friday's shallow 7.7-magnitude quake destroyed dozens of buildings in Mandalay, the country's cultural capital and home to more than 1.7 million people.

In one street, a monastery's clock tower lay collapsed on its side, its hands pointing to 12:55 pm -- just minutes after the time the quake struck. Among the worst-hit buildings in the city is the Sky Villa Condominium development, where more than 90 people are feared to be trapped. The building'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 woman'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. Scattered around were the remains of people's lives -- a child's plastic bunny toy, pieces of furniture and a picture of the New York skyline.

After hours of painstaking work came a rare moment of joy as rescuers pulled Phyu Lay Khaing out of the remains of the Sky Villa Condominium -- still alive after 30 hours under the rubble. She was carried out on a stretcher to be embraced by her husband Ye Aung and taken to hospital.

"In the beginning I didn't think she would be alive," Ye Aung told AFP as he anxiously waited for his wife -- then still buried in the rubble -- to emerge. "I am very happy that I heard good news," said the trader, who has two sons with his wife -- eight-year-old William, and Ethan, five.

'More help is needed'