Mandalay, Bangkok -The rescue workers in Myanmar are struggling to save the trapped under the rubble of the buildings collapsed in the second largest city in the country, Mandalay, following the powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.7 that knocked down buildings, knocked down bridges, destroyed roads and sent shock waves throughout the region.
Each street in the city has collapsed buildings as a result of Friday's earthquake. Angusticated residents wait outside their houses and damaged and flattened businesses for rescue equipment and any government's aid, which has not yet arrived.
Mandalay resident, Sandar Win, 45, told Al Jazeera how his six -year -old son was trapped under debris that falls and suffered a fractured pelvis.
Sandar Win said he brought his son to the General Hospital of Mandalay, but were rejected since the installation was crowded with victims of the earthquake.
“So we had to go to a private hospital. It's now in the operating room,” said Sandar Win. “He is our only son. My heart dies to see my son like this.”
Stores, restaurants and crops are closed and there are crowds in Mandalay service stations, with people who need fuel for electric generators, since energy is in the city of more than 1.5 million.
Ambulances at the speed of Pyin Oo Lwin have been seen, a city located in the picturesque hills about 64 km (40 miles) east of Mandalay and popular among foreign tourists and visitors from other parts of Myanmar.
Wai Phyo, a rescue worker, said the search and recovery teams were doing everything possible, but were overwhelmed by the destruction scale and the lack of “proper equipment.”
“There are still many people trapped under the rubble. We hope to get them alive, but hope is not so brilliant,” Wai Phyo told Al Jazeera, and added that communications were also a problem, since they barely had telephone lines and Internet access was almost impossible.
Myanmar's army has sent troops to the affected areas, but “they are not helping,” said Wai Phyo.
“We don't need them here,” he said, adding: “We need proper help.”
The Reuters news agency also reported that rescue workers in Mandalay had to borrow machinery from private companies to help change debris, and some residents had led Facebook to appeal team donations to help rescue efforts.
Rescue operations in the city are now resorting to recovery as the time window closes to save the survivors, said Tony Cheng from Al Jazeera from Mandalay.
“I was talking to the fire chief who is leading this operation on the revised figure of 1,000 deaths in Myanmar and he simply said that there are thousands of bodies only in this city, which suggests that these numbers will increase and rise abruptly,” Cheng said.
'Working 24 hours'
In the capital of Thailand, Bangkok, rescue efforts focus on a 30 -story collapsed building, which was under construction at the time he hit the earthquake and where it is believed that dozens of workers are under the ruins.
At least 10 people died in Bangkok on Friday despite the fact that the city was more than 1,000 km (620 miles) of the epicenter in Myanmar.
“It is difficult to locate the missing ones,” said Atikom Watkoson, a rescue worker on the scene of what would be a several -story government building in the Chatuchak district of Bangkok.
The search has been complicated by the fact that there is no clear indication in which in the building it is estimated that 47 missing workers were when they collapsed on Friday, said Atikom Watkoson to Al Jazeera.
But signs of survivors have been detected and heavy machinery has been brought to help clean the site mountain, he said.
Even so, “there is a lot of work to pass,” added Atikom Watkoson.
In all Bangkok, engineers and government officials are now inspecting the integrity of the hundreds of city skyscrapers, with residents of many high -rise buildings that inform cracks on walls and floors.
“All are high -rise buildings in the center of the city of Bangkok,” said Sirin Hiranthaanakasem, a resident in the capital who fled 23 stairs of stairs when the earthquake hit and now stays in a hotel, too scared to return to his apartment.
“If something would collapse, we would not survive,” he said.
The Bangkok metropolitan administration has also opened an online portal so that people in the capital report damage to buildings.
Despite the chaos resulting from the earthquake on Friday and the Bangkok authorities that declare the city as a disaster area, the Thai capital has quickly returned to normal with the airports of the city that work and the Light Return System, with most stores and restaurants in operation.
Even so, the vice president of Thailand, Anutin Charnvirakul, said that all possible resources have been deployed to seek survivors at the site of the building collapse and recover the bodies of the deceased.
“We always have hope,” journalists told the possibility of finding living workers.
“We are still working 24 hours.”
Nandi Theint reported from Mandalay, Myanmar; Wanpen Pajai reported from Bangkok, Thailand.
