Right up until the terrible moment on Friday, Gak and Kanlayanee were in constant touch with their parents back home. The teenage brother and sister loved their life in Bangkok, and sent a stream of messages and photographs of themselves in overalls and yellow helmets on the big construction site where they both worked.
“They’d bought a car with their earnings — it was their dream and they were so proud of it,” said their father, Thongma Pratan. “I wish they’d never had that dream. I wish they had never come here.”
Because, some time after 1pm on Friday afternoon, the stream of messages and selfies abruptly stopped.
“We felt the earthquake in our home,” he added. “I called my daughter, and I called her again and again but I couldn’t get through.” Then came a disturbing message from the foreman of the construction company: could photographs of Pratan’s 19-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter be provided for “identification purposes”? He and his wife drove straight down to the Thai capital and found a scene of destruction and hopelessness.
The tower on which their children had been working, the new 33-storey offices of Thailand’s state audit office, was a vast heap of rubble — the one tall building in the whole country to collapse in an earthquake that originated 640 miles away in neighbouring Myanmar. Gak, 19, and Kanlayanee, 18, were inside it when it came down in a matter of seconds.
“Kanlayanee said that she’d been working on the 22nd floor,” said her father, speaking in front of the ruins of the buildings, its floors collapsed onto one another like pancakes. “I pray that the Buddha protected her. Or I pray that she wasn’t on the 22nd floor, that she went to the toilet, and that she’s alive in hospital somewhere.”
Looking at the debris, it is hard to believe that anyone could be breathing beneath it — and yet they are. Rescuers assisted by sniffer dogs and heat-detection equipment had identified at least 15 places on Saturday where victims of the catastrophe appeared to be trapped alive. Overnight, eight bodies were found, but eight other people were removed alive and sent to hospital.
• A visual guide to the earthquake
“They were completely covered in dust and it was impossible to see who they were,” said Phon, a volunteer who witnessed one of the rescues. “We cheered and clapped. We were so happy. We needed that encouragement.”
Visiting the site on Saturday, the governor of Bangkok, Chadchart Sittipunt, promised: “We will do everything. We will not give up on saving lives. We will use all resources.” But by lunchtime at least 50 people were still missing and already angry questions were being asked about the skyscraper collapse. On Sunday morning the city authorities reported that 17 people had died with 32 injured and 83 still missing.
Thais were shaken by the magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Friday, but its effects were far less severe than at the epicentre in Myanmar, where at least 1,644 people are confirmed to have died, a number that will surely rise. Bangkok, by contrast, has cracks in the plaster walls of its dwellings, and many people who are understandably nervous about returning to their high-rise apartment blocks.
No other significant building in the country collapsed — so why this one, a government project costing 2.1 billion baht (£48 million) constructed by a Thai-Italian company and the China Railway Construction Corporation?
“I am very angry — this should never happen in any circumstances,” says Suchatvee Suwansawat, a professor of civil engineering at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Bangkok, who was at the site on Saturday. “Something went wrong here, although we don’t yet know exactly what.
“The pillars [at the bottom of the building] burst like a bomb. Either there was a problem in the design or in the construction. We need experts to investigate why this happened and they have to be independent.”
Over the border in Myanmar, people are still reeling from the impact of the earthquake, which was the strongest in a century.
“It was really horrifying,” said Myo Zaw, a 30-year-old emergency worker. “This has never happened in our lifetimes. I saw buildings collapse, cars obstructed by fallen trees and ambulances rushing through the streets.”
He said from Mandalay: “A lot of us were stunned by what was happening right in front of our eyes, many people gathering on the main streets, burning buildings visible in the distance. Most of the high-rise buildings were severely damaged, with some completely broken apart or collapsed.”
Tint Myat Noe, a 20-year-old university student in Mandalay, said: “This is our first time to be hit by a really powerful and scary earthquake and I was so frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a restaurant, glasses were falling over, people were shouting. Some people just lay down on the road.”
She added: “A lot of buildings were damaged and collapsed on the road. There are still people who can’t get out of their buildings.”
• Is it safe to travel to Thailand after Myanmar earthquake?
General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of Myanmar’s junta, ordered his government to “expedite search and rescue efforts and address any urgent needs” but his forces have also continued to bomb territory held by the resistance in the civil war. The UN called this “completely outrageous”. Some victims of the disaster say the emergency services and local governments are overwhelmed by the scale of the medical and humanitarian disaster.
“The local markets and bazaars are closed and only the small convenience stores selling eggs and dry food are open,” said Myo Zaw. “We’re trying to do our best to help people, but lots of them are still struggling to get food and supplies.”
He added: “The fire departments and rescue workers are doing their best but in my opinion the military government is either unable to understand how to handle this situation or is not providing adequate assistance to the people.”
Myanmar’s rulers have a poor record of allowing international help. After a cyclone in 2008, foreign aid workers were barred from entering the devastated area. But the junta leader has indicated that this time they are welcome and some have started to arrive.
Three separate teams from Myanmar’s only close international friend, China, have brought drones, medical kits, generators and other relief supplies, according to Beijing state television. China’s embassy in Myanmar reported on Saturday that its president, Xi Jinping, spoke to Hlaing, and that the government would provide $13.77 million worth of aid.
Russia’s ministry for emergencies said that 120 rescue workers had been sent to help search for victims trapped in the rubble, equipped with anaesthesiologists, psychologists and sniffer dogs. Help has also been promised by Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
Even in Thailand, much of the burden of the disaster is being carried by people from Myanmar — the immigrant workers who made up much of the workforce on the doomed skyscraper. They came to peer over the wall of the now closed-off construction site, their former workplace and now the tomb of many of their friends.
One man wept loudly for his sister, who is among the missing. His companion, 30-year-old Yee Min Twe, came to Thailand four years ago, as Myanmar was descending into civil war, to earn money for his wife and their newborn baby. As a skilled layer of concrete, he earned 372 baht (£8.50) a day.
He was lucky enough to be in another building when the main tower collapsed. “I saw it fall down,” he says. “It was so sad and frightening. It happened so fast. We felt the building shaking and we ran. But my nephew is in there. So many of my friends are in there.”
With every passing hour, the chance of finding them alive grows slimmer.
Additional reporting by Dar Dar Moo
