YANGON, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 50 people have been killed in the powerful earthquake in Nay Pyi Taw, capital of Myanmar, by Friday evening, local rescue organizations told Xinhua.
The number of deaths and missing persons may increase in the following days. Search and rescue efforts are still in progress, local rescue organizations in Nay Pyi Taw said.
Many apartments, hospitals, schools and government office buildings have been damaged to varying degrees. Some school buildings collapsed and an unspecified number of students were buried, they added.
It is expected that the number of deaths and missing persons will be high in central Mandalay region as a lot of buildings there have been damaged, officials from the Mandalay provincial government told Xinhua, adding that authorities are compiling statistics.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 jolted 16 km NNW of Sagaing, central Myanmar at around 12:50 p.m. local time (06:20 GMT) on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. ■
