7.7-magnitude earthquake kills more than 150 people in Myanmar, Thailand

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake centered in Myanmar reverberated across Southeast Asia on Friday, with the scale of death, injury and destruction slowly coming into view in the war-ravaged nation, where the military government maintains a tight hold on information.

The earthquake occurred around 1:30 p.m. local time (2:30 a.m. ET) at a depth of 6 miles near Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was followed 11 minutes later by a 6.4-magnitude aftershock.

The USGS warned on Friday that “high casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread.” According to a predictive analysis based on the strength and depth of the earthquake, USGS estimated that more than 1000 people may have been killed, with a death toll over 10,000 a strong possibility.

Myanmar’s ruling military general, Min Aung Hlaing said at least 140 people have been killed, and hundreds more injured, according to Reuters. He added that those numbers are likely to rise.

Min Aung Hlaing invited “any country” to provide help and donations, adding that he had opened routes for international assistance and had accepted offers of help from India and ASEAN, the bloc of Southeast Asian nations. 

Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson of Myanmar's military government, earlier made an appeal for medical supplies in a late night news bulletin on state television, calling for blood donations due to “so many” injuries across three urban areas. 

In neighboring Thailand, at least ten people were confirmed to have been killed, with at least 100 more missing, according to city officials. The death toll is expected to rise.

Speaking Friday evening local time, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said residents in the affected area could return to their homes.

"The Prime Minister would like to reassure the public that the affected area is limited in scope," the PM's office said in a statement.

Located more than 600 miles from the epicenter, Bangkok is home to 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments. It was declared a disaster zone after the quake sent buildings swaying, and water sloshing from rooftop swimming pools. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes and workplaces.

Footage from an NBC News crew on the ground at the Bangkok building collapse site showed local crews working amid the rubble, including some with rescue dogs, as they assessed the damage. Dozens are believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Nantida Saengrat said her 23-year-old niece, who went by the nickname Noey, had just started working in the building about two weeks ago. She sobbed as she waited by the debris for any sign of her.

"Every time there’s a rescue coming out, I go to take a look," Saengrat said. "She’s just about to graduate. She’s the hope of her parents. I never thought something like this could happen."

In Myanmar, initial reports on the impact of the earthquake indicate significant damage in the center of the country, according to an official from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Zin Mar Aung, the top diplomat of the parallel National Unity Government, said troops from the anti-junta militias, known as the People’s Defence Forces, would be providing humanitarian help.

“It’s very serious, we need humanitarian and technical assistance from the international community,” Zin Mar Aung said in a phone interview with Reuters, adding that communications was a major challenge, including internet restrictions imposed by the junta in a hard-hit area.

The International Rescue Committee, a non-profit relief organization, said it was preparing to send emergency assistance to Myanmar, which was already suffering from limited resources even before the earthquake. The nation ranked third on the International Rescue Committee's annual Emergency Watchlist for 2025, which lists countries most likely to face growing humanitarian crises.

"The added stress of meeting the needs of those who have been injured in the earthquake is going to cause unparalleled strain on already stretched resources," Mohammed Riyas, the group's Myanmar director, said in a statement.

The military government in Myanmar, where a civil war has been raging for four years, also declared a state of emergency in multiple regions, including Mandalay and the capital, Naypyitaw.

A Red Cross spokesperson in Yangon told reporters that the damage to public infrastructure included roads, bridges and public buildings, adding that there were also concerns over the state of large-scale dams.

“The bridge that connects Mandalay to Sagaing has collapsed — this will cause logistical issues," Marie Manrique, the Red Cross program coordinator in Yangon said, adding, “Sagaing has the largest number of internally displaced people in the country.”

In addition to the collapsed 90-year-old bridge in the Sagaing region just southwest of Mandalay, sections of the highway connecting Mandalay with Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, were damaged, the AP reported. The quake also damaged religious shrines and some homes in Naypyitaw.

Rebecca Bell, a tectonics expert at Imperial College London, said the earthquake may have occurred on the Sagaing Fault, a long, straight fault line with similar movement to the San Andreas Fault in California.

Quakes on these types of continental faults “can be particularly destructive as the earthquake rupture can be very shallow, causing a lot of shaking at the surface, and their continental nature means population centers can be located very close to the fault.”

Getting humanitarian relief into the worst-hit areas of Myanmar “might not be politically easy,” said Ilan Kelman, a professor of disasters and health at the department of risk and disaster reduction at University College London.

He noted that in 2008, when Cyclone Nargis killed more than 130,000 people in Myanmar, the government took days to accept significant aid and then hindered its delivery. The military has tightly regulated entry into the country since seizing power in a coup in 2021.

Tremors were also felt in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, which borders Myanmar. In the border town of Ruili, residents ran away from a high-rise residential building as it shook violently, according to a video posted on the Chinese social media platform Weibo and geolocated by NBC News.

The earthquake Friday was probably the biggest on the Myanmar mainland in three-quarters of a century, said Bill McGuire, a professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. 

“A combination of size and very shallow depth will maximize the chances of damage,” he said. “It is highly likely that build quality will generally not be high enough to survive this level of shaking, and casualty numbers will almost certainly climb significantly as more becomes known of the scale of the disaster.”

Nat Sumon and Kyle Eppler reported from Bangkok, Matthew Mulligan and Astha Rajvanshi from London and Mithil Aggarwal from Hong Kong.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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