Video from the Myanmar earthquake has revealed the terrifying ordeal of being trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building.
The footage shows two girls, aged 13 and 16, and their bloodied grandmother in a debris-filled space after Friday’s powerful 7.7-magnitude quake.
They became trapped as they fled their sixth-floor apartment in the country’s second biggest city of Mandalay – near the epicentre of the earthquake – and ran for the emergency stairs.
The girls’ father initially believed his daughters and mother had died and appealed for help on social media to retrieve their bodies.
But they were alive – and had grabbed their phones in the moments before the building collapsed.
Writing on Facebook, he said: “My daughters recorded videos on their phones, thinking that if they and grandma died, their phones might be found, and their father and mother, would see them.
“They even unlocked their phones.”
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He said his family could hear others trapped underneath them in the wreckage of the Sky Villa apartment block.
“They called out to each other from above and below, but there was no sound from the outside. As hours passed, they became disheartened and held hands with grandma, crying,” he said.
Rescuers eventually found them and used a hammer to make a small hole to pass them water, but they had to leave to get more equipment.
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Left alone for some time, the girls took matters into their own hands and used the hammer to make a gap for them to escape.
“They wanted to make a bigger opening for grandma, but the large stones were too heavy, and both sisters couldn’t move them,” said the man’s post.
‘Gasping for breath’
Rescuers returned and managed to pull the girls out.
Their 75-year-old grandmother was “gasping for breath” and could not fit through – but was also later rescued.
“I am deeply grateful to my mother and my two daughters for enduring this ordeal with such strong spirits,” the man wrote.
“These are the words my daughters shared with me after their trauma had subsided.
“At a time when all hope was lost, I bow my head in reverence and gratitude to the Lord Buddha for allowing our family to survive together.”
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More than 1,700 people are now said to have died in Myanmar following the quake, according to state media on Sunday.
Eighteen were also killed in Thailand but dozens more remain unaccounted for. Hopes of people surviving in rubble diminish after 72 hours.
The UN is rushing aid supplies to survivors in Myanmar but the rescue effort is complicated by the fact that many roads, bridges, rail lines and airports have been damaged.
The country is also in the middle of an ongoing civil war that has taken a heavy toll on the health system and displaced more than three million people.
