BANGKOK, Thailand (WLIO) - A powerful earthquake has rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand, killing at least 150 people, mostly in Myanmar.
The 7.7 magnitude quake had an epicenter in Myanmar and it was felt through Thailand and all the way to China. It struck at midday on Friday and was followed by a strong 6.4 magnitude aftershock. Promotions Director of Hometown Stations Patrick Cochenour was in Bangkok at the time of the earthquake and tells us what it was like.
"I was having lunch, and it's been really hot here, and the room started wobbling, so I thought, 'Oh, am I having a heat stroke or something?'," Cochenour recounted. "I started looking around, and this Australian family sitting in the next table over, was like, 'is the building shaking', and I said, 'I'm glad I'm not the only person experiencing this now.' Then at that point, everybody got up and got out of the building and went outside, and were waiting. The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes. What really caused a lot of chaos was after that, the MRT and BTS, that's the sky train, and the subway system shut down, and everybody basically went outside and stayed outside for hours, and traffic was just gridlocked. I went to a park nearby, and that was pretty much everybody's plan."
There's dramatic video from Bangkok of a high rise building under construction that collapsed, killing at least seven people and burying dozens. That hit close to home since Patrick was just there on Thursday.
"That's Chatuchak Park, and there's a walking street market there - I went there yesterday, and was, I think, where one of those videos was filmed from," said Cochenour. "I was at that exact spot. When that building went down, it was crazy, because when it all happened, like I said, there was some shaking. It was more like a wobble. The building just kind of wobbled."
A state of emergency has been declared in multiple regions of southeast Asia as recovery efforts are underway.
