Prayers fade for workers trapped in tower ruins

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

- BY DAN WARBURTON

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 yesterday showed Thai rescue teams alongside Israeli military, US Special Forces and Turkish earthquake experts from the 2023 disaster that killed 55,000 combing part of the site.

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.

Khamsaen Matra, 47, her son Natdanai Namburi, 26, and her 23-year-old student daughter Sumitra Namburi were all named among the dead.

HUSBAND