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Massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocks Thailand, Burma, collapsing buildings and killing more than 150

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Massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocks Thailand, Burma, collapsing buildings and killing more than 150

A massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake rattled Thailand and Burma on Friday, causing buildings to collapse and leaving more than 150 people dead across both countries.

Dramatic footage captured in Bangkok showed a 33-story apartment building that was under construction falling down, scattering dust and debris throughout the city’s streets. Bangkok city authorities said 10 people were killed, 16 were injured and 101 are missing from three construction sites, including the high-rise.

More than 144 people were killed in Burma, where photos and video from two hard-hit cities showed extensive damage. The earthquake’s epicenter was in central Burma and aftershocks were reportedly felt in India and China. 

One aftershock was reported to have been 6.4 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey. People in Bangkok that were evacuated from their buildings were cautioned to stay outside in case there were more.

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Rescuers work at the site of a collapsed apartment building under construction in Bangkok, Thailand. (Reuters/Ann Wang)

The head of Burma’s military government said in a televised speech Friday evening that at least 144 people were killed and 730 others were injured.

“The death toll and injuries are expected to rise,” Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said, according to the Associated Press.

In Bangkok, Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said 90 people were missing in the wake of the building collapse.

Near Bangkok’s popular Chatuchak market, the 33-story building under construction, with a crane on top, crumpled into a cloud of dust, and onlookers could be seen screaming and running in other videos posted to social media.

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Officials there declared the city a disaster area to facilitate interagency aid and emergency help. The greater Bangkok area is home to more than 17 million people, many of whom live in high-rise apartments.

April Kanichawanakul, who works in an office building in Bangkok’s city center, at first didn’t even realize it was an earthquake, the first she’d ever experienced. “I just thought I was dizzy,” she told the AP.

“All of a sudden the whole building began to move. Immediately there was screaming and a lot of panic,” added Fraser Morton, a tourist from Scotland, who was in one of Bangkok’s many malls shopping for camera equipment.

Evacuated hospital in Thailand

Patients are evacuated outdoors at a hospital after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, March 28. (Tadchakorn Kitchaiphon)

“I just started walking calmly at first but then the building started really moving, yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators, lots of banging and crashing inside the mall.”

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The U.S. Geological Survey and Germany’s GFZ center for geosciences said the earthquake was a shallow 6.2 miles, with an epicenter in central Burma, according to preliminary reports.

Apartment building under construction collapses in Thailand

Rescuers work at the site of a high-rise building under construction that collapsed after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, March 28.  (AP/Sakchai Lalit)

Water from high-rise rooftop pools in Bangkok sloshed over the side as they shook, and debris fell from many buildings.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra called an emergency meeting to assess the impact of the quake, which Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention said was felt in almost all regions of the country. 

Burma earthquake map

The location of Friday’s earthquake that rocked Burma and Thailand. (Fox News)

In Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city and close to the epicenter, the earthquake damaged part of the former royal palace and buildings, according to videos and photos released on Facebook social media.

In the Sagaing region just southwest of Mandalay, a 90-year-old bridge collapsed, and some sections of the highway connecting Mandalay and the city of Yangon were also damaged.

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In the capital Naypyitaw, the quake damaged religious shrines, sending parts toppling to the ground, and some homes.

Myanmar Southeast Asia Earthquake

Damaged pagodas are seen after an earthquake, on Friday, March 28, in Naypyitaw, Burma. (AP/Aung Shine Oo)

There are reportedly 188 people injured so far in Tibet on the Chinese side of the border, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Russia continues to accuse Ukraine of delaying planned exchange of dead fighters

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Russia continues to accuse Ukraine of delaying planned exchange of dead fighters

Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Kyiv that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Ukraine had postponed the swap.

Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but that there are “signals” that the process of transferring the bodies will be postponed until next week.

Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war.

Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide who led the Russian delegation, said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, Medinsky said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came.

In response, Ukraine said Russia was playing “dirty games” and manipulating facts.

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According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn’t correspond to agreements reached on Monday.

It wasn’t immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims.

In other developments, one person was killed and another seriously wounded in Russian aerial strikes on the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. These strikes came after Russian attacks targeted the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, on Saturday. Regional police in Kharkiv said on Sunday that the death toll from Saturday’s attacks had increased to six people. More than two dozen others were wounded.

Russia fired a total of 49 exploding drones and decoys and three missiles overnight, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday. Forty drones were shot down or electronically jammed.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry said that its forces shot down 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including near the capital.

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Two people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at a chemical plant in the Tula region.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukrain

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Right-wing Colombian presidential candidate shot at rally

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Right-wing Colombian presidential candidate shot at rally

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A Colombian senator and presidential candidate was shot on Saturday in Bogotá, the government and his campaign said. 

Miguel Uribe, 39, was hosting a campaign event in a public park in the Fontibon neighborhood when “armed subjects shot him in the back.”

His party described the attack as serious but didn’t go into detail about his condition. 

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Miguel Uribe, 39, was hosting a campaign event in a public park when he was shot.  (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

He is a member of the opposition right-wing Democratic Center party, founded by former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

The party called the attack “an unacceptable act of violence.”

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Miguel Uribe smiling with a crowd

Miguel Uribe Turbay, center in blue tie, celebrates after voting against a labor reform referendum proposed by the government, in Bogota, Colombia, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File) (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show Uribe after the attack covered in blood with a possible head wound as people attempt to stem the bleeding. 

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Police at the scene

Police officers guard the area where Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe was shot during a campaign event. (Reuters//Luisa Gonzalez)

A suspect was taken into custody, Bogotá’s mayor said, according to Colombia Reports. 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

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Colombia’s would-be presidential candidate shot at Bogota rally

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Colombia’s would-be presidential candidate shot at Bogota rally

The senator’s wife says he ‘is fighting for his life’ after being shot at a campaign event in Bogota.

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, has been shot and wounded in the country’s capital, Bogota, according to authorities.

The 39-year-old senator, who was shot on Saturday during a campaign event as part of his run for the presidency in 2026, is now “fighting for his life”, his wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, said on X.

Uribe is a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Center party, founded by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

The two men are not related.

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The Democratic Center party released a statement calling the shooting “an unacceptable act of violence”.

It said the senator was hosting a campaign event in a public park in the Fontibon neighbourhood in the capital when “armed subjects” shot him from behind.

It described the attack as serious, but did not disclose further details on Uribe’s condition.

A medical report from the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said the senator was admitted in critical condition and is undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.

Videos on social media showed a man, identified as Uribe, being tended to after the shooting. He appeared to be bleeding from his head.

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Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office, which is investigating the shooting, said the senator received two gunshot wounds in the attack, which wounded two others. The statement from the office said a 15-year-old boy was arrested at the scene with a firearm.

The government said it is offering some $730,000 as a reward for information in the case.

Miguel Uribe, centre in blue tie, a Colombian senator and presidential candidate for the right-wing Centro Democrático party, celebrates after voting against a labour reform referendum proposed by the government, in Bogota, Colombia, May 14, 2025 [Fernando Vergara/AP]

Colombia’s presidency issued a statement saying the government “categorically and forcefully” rejected the violent attack, and called for a thorough investigation into the events that took place.

Leftist President Gustavo Petro sympathised with the senator’s family in a message on X, and said: “Respect life, that’s the red line… My solidarity with the Uribe family and the Turbay family. I don’t know how to ease their pain.”

In a speech on Saturday night, Petro said that the investigation would focus on finding who had ordered the attack.

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“For now, there is nothing more than hypotheses,” Petro said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the US “condemns in the strongest possible terms the attempted assassination” of Uribe, blaming Petro’s “inflammatory rhetoric” for the violence.

Reactions poured in from around Latin America. Chilean President Gabriel Boric said that “there is no room or justification for violence in a democracy”. And Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said, “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”

Both presidents offered solidarity to the senator’s family.

In Colombia, former President Uribe said that “they attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, father, son, brother, a great colleague”.

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Uribe, who is not yet an official presidential candidate for his party, is from a prominent family in Colombia.

His father was a businessman and union leader. His mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped in 1990 by an armed group under the command of the late cartel leader Pablo Escobar.

She was killed during a rescue operation in 1991.

Colombia has for decades been embroiled in a conflict between leftist rebels, criminal groups descended from right-wing paramilitaries, and the government.

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