Bbc
While the sun sets on Bangkok, hundreds of rescuers are desperately looking for survivors in the skyscraper collapsed by 30 floors on a construction site of the Thai capital.
The rescuers try to reach dozens of workers trapped in the rubble after the collapse of the skyscraper.
Standing on a bridge at a short distance from the scene, under the orange glow of the sky, a group of journalists, including myself, look with disbelief the heaps of three-story concrete.
A twisted thread and a metal advance.
Even when more professional rescue and military teams arrive and the spotlights are erected, it seems that little chance of finding many survivors.
An earthquake of 7.7 shallow magnitude struck the center of Myanmar and was followed a few minutes later by a 6.4 magnitude replica, overthrowing the buildings and breaking the roads.
Here, on the other side of the border in Thailand, shocks and devastation have also been felt. Residents find it difficult to respond to a natural disaster to which few are used to.
Nukul Khemutha worked on the fifth floor when he felt the tremors
I was at home when the Shakes started and it was different from everything I had felt before.
The collapsed building, belonging to the National Audit Office, was under construction for three years at a cost of more than two billion Thai (45 million pounds sterling) – now reduced in rubble.
White tents have been erected at the perimeter while headset rescuers in bright yellow work to release around 81 people still trapped under the collapsed skyscraper.
Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechachai told journalists that three people had been confirmed dead. There is a little less than an hour, I saw two covered bodies be transported to the tents.
The road next to the building is full of fire trucks, ambulances and other rescue vehicles. Curious civilians joined us on the bridge, looking at trying to understand what is going on.
Heavy machines are starting to arrive, including a large crane. The rescuers say they need it to remove the debris before they can start looking for the missing.
Adisorn Kamphasorn had not yet spoken to his family because he lost his phone in chaos
I arrived less than an hour after the collapse to find construction workers covered with dust, amazed by what they had just survived.
Adisorn Kamphasorn had brought back materials from the sixth floor when he suddenly felt the tremor. The 18 -year -old looked up in the stairwell and saw a trembled crane.
He said to me: “I knew it was about to be bad. I ran. It took a minute for him to collapse. All of a sudden, there was smoke everywhere and everything was black. I couldn’t breathe. I had no mask.”
He had not yet spoken to his family because he had lost his phone in chaos, saying that he had never lived anything like this in his life. He thought he was going to die.
Construction workers tell me that they were a mixture of Thai and Burma.
Nukul Khemutha, 30, worked on the fifth floor when he felt the tremors. He looked up and saw all the stages sink, the holes forming.
He said that one of his colleagues had just climbed to the tenth floor to use the bathroom and that they are still waiting for news from his place. He said to me: “We all shouted” run “and we were talking about holding hands and running together.”
When I told them, they sat there, trying to calm down. They looked sad. None of the survivors had received medical aid, because all the attention was focused on those who are still trapped.
While the noise of drilling intensifies, the rescuers face a long night to come.
Additional Rachel Hagan reports in London
