Hundreds feared dead in earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand

Newshour

BBC

News, Daily News

4.4 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 7.7 magnitude earthquake - which the US Geological Survey says had an epicentre in central Myanmar - has been felt in neighbouring countries, including Thailand where an unfinished high-rise has collapsed. Dozens of construction workers are missing, the Thai deputy prime minister says, and a search and rescue operation is under way. Damage in Myanmar is still being assessed. We speak to the International Red Cross in Yangon and hear first hand testiomny from Thailand's capital Bangkok.

Also on the programme: the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- has announced a package of measures to help winemakers struggling to sell their product. Wine writer Julia Harding MW tells us why less wine is being drunk; and the visit by the US vice-president, JD Vance, to Greenland has sparked controversy. Greenlandic politician Qupanuk Olsen shares her perspective.

(Image: Motorists ride past a damaged building after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, in Mandalay, Myanmar, March 28, 2025. Credit: Reuters)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to News Out from the BBC World Service.
0:06.5	We're coming to you live from London.
0:08.3	I'm James Menendez.
0:10.1	And our top story today is that powerful earthquake that struck central Myanmar
0:13.7	and its far-reaching impact, even in Bangkok, the capital of neighbouring Thailand,
0:18.8	about a thousand kilometres away.
0:20.8	There, the force of the qu Thailand, about a thousand kilometres away.
0:25.4	There, the force of the quake, it was recorded as 7.7 magnitude,
0:30.3	caused a skyscraper under construction to collapse in dramatic fashion. The moment was caught on camera and posted on social media as a huge cloud of dust enveloped workers running for their lives.
0:46.0	There were about 400 construction workers at the sites. The latest we have is that most
0:51.4	have been found, but 61 people are still missing, and that search is going on right now.
0:58.1	Bui Thu was in her Bangkok apartment when the quake struck.
1:02.3	I was at home cooking. Well, I felt the first strike, and I was very nervous, and I was very panic.
1:09.2	I didn't know what it was. And then the second strike,
1:12.2	I had to run on to the street and I saw a lot of people did the same thing out of the buildings.
1:18.2	And we was literally in panic. And Thailand is not an earthquake zone. For that reason,
1:25.1	buildings in Bangkok are not engineered for large earthquakes. So that's
1:29.7	why I think that it's going to be a big damage. But it is central Myanmar that has borne the brunt
1:36.0	of this disaster. Although news from the country is only slowly seeping out, it is a country
1:41.7	in the grip of a civil war ruled by a secretive and isolated military
1:46.8	government. However, one official, Zohmintun, speaking outside a hospital in the capital, Napierdor,
1:53.1	made this rare appeal for international help.
	...

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