WHO says 26 million people affected by Turkey-Syria quake, as death toll nears 30,000

When the ground violently shook beneath his feet, Prem Kishore Mohanty, an Indian expatriate in Bangkok, was attending his five-year-old daughter's school sports day. What began as a routine event—children competing, parents cheering—quickly turned into a moment of panic as tremors struck.

"I felt my head spinning and had to sit down. The overhead lights swayed, and chairs moved," said Mr. Mohanty, 44. The school's PA system quickly announced an emergency evacuation, directing everyone to the outdoor field while warning against using nearby lanes lined with high-rise towers.

Water from rooftop swimming pools, including those at the InterContinental Bangkok, cascaded down buildings, as captured in viral videos.

Fear and Chaos as Bangkok Shakes
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake, with its epicenter in Myanmar, sent powerful tremors into Thailand, bringing Bangkok to an abrupt standstill. Public transport was suspended, traffic snarled, and people evacuated buildings, waiting anxiously for the all-clear.

Earthquakes are rare in Bangkok, a city more accustomed to heat and monsoons than seismic shocks. For the Mohanty family, who live in a high-rise apartment in Sukhumvit, confusion and fear gripped them as the evacuation began.

"It was terrifying. We were told to take the fire escape stairwell and wait outside. There was no time to think," Mr. Mohanty recalled.

Now safe, he remains shaken by the unexpected jolt that turned a normal day into a moment of chaos for his family and thousands across the city.

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake, and an aftershock of 6.8, hit central Myanmar at 12.50pm (local time) Friday. The epicentre was 16km northwest of the city of Sagaing, and at a depth of 10km, the United States Geological Survey said. 20 deaths have been reported - in Myanmar so far - by local media.

Deaths have also been reported from a mosque in Mandalay city, which collapsed while people were inside, praying and a university building in which a fire broke out. And a 1,000-bed hospital in Myanmar capital Naypyidaw has become a "mass casualty area", news agency AFP said.

The Myanmar junta has declared an 'emergency' and has appealed for international aid.

Tremors were felt as far away as northern Thailand, where some metro and rail services were suspended in Bangkok. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is holding an "urgent meeting" to review the crisis and she too has declared a state of 'emergency' in the capital city.

China's Yunnan province also reported strong tremors; the China Earthquake Networks Center said the magnitude was 7.9. And mild tremors were also reported from Kolkata in Bengal and parts of Manipur, where tremors of 4.4 magnitude were recorded as well as Dhaka and Chattogram in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India is ready to offer any assistance needed. "Praying for the safety and wellbeing of everyone," he posted on X. "... have asked our authorities to be on standby."

Terrifying videos on X showed buildings shaking in Bangkok and other cities, with people running onto the streets in panic. "I heard it... I was sleeping in the house and then I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building," Duangjai, a resident of popular tourist city Chiang Mai, told AFP.

One particularly horrifying video showed water from an infinity pool falling over the edge.

And another showed an under-construction skyscraper in Bangkok's Chatuchak neighbourhood collapsing. According to reports, 43 workers have been trapped amid the debris.

"When I arrived to inspect the site, I heard people calling for help, saying help me," Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP. "We estimate that hundreds of people are injured but we are still determining the number of casualties."

In Myanmar, an old bridge over the Irrawaddy River and some residential buildings having collapsed, with images from Mandalay (around 24km from Sagaing) suggesting more people may be trapped.

Other videos showed extensive damage to the airport in Mandalay and to a monastery near the city of Taunggyi, in Myanmar's Shan State that is on the border to Thailand.

Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, where six strong quakes of 7.0 magnitude or more struck between 1930 and 1956 near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north to south through the country.

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake, in the ancient capital Bagan in central Myanmar, killed three people in 2016, also toppling spires and crumbling temple walls at the tourist destination.

The impoverished nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.

New York: An Indian national enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow in the US has been detained by immigration authorities, said a media report, less than a week after a Columbia student from India self-deported following allegations of activities supporting Hamas.

Badar Khan Suri's lawyer claimed that he is being punished “because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife — who is a US citizen — and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose US foreign policy toward Israel.”

He is a former student of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Suri is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

A report in Politico said that Suri, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been “detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy.”

The report said that “masked agents” arrested Suri from outside his home in Virginia Monday night.

A petition filed by his lawyer Hassan Ahmad said that he was taken to a facility in Virginia and is “expected to be transferred soon to a detention centre in Texas.”

The Politico report said that Suri’s lawyer has filed a lawsuit for his immediate release.

“The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa,” the lawsuit says, according to the Politico report.

The report added that according to Suri’s petition, he was put in “deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law” that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident arrested for his role in leading campus protests at Columbia against Israel. 

The petition says the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights. The petition adds that Suri’s wife Mapheze Saleh has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera.

The petition further notes that Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime. Ahmad said he had not been able to contact Suri as of Wednesday evening.

“We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad said.

“This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”

According to his profile on the website of Georgetown University, Suri completed his PhD in Peace & Conflict Studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2020. 

He wrote his thesis on Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq in which he underlined the complexities involved in introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies; as well as challenges to project state building.

He has travelled extensively in the conflict zones of India, Pakistan, Balochistan in Iran, Iran, Turkey, Kurdish Areas in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and its southern region, Egypt and Palestine.  

The Politico report quoted a statement from a Georgetown spokesperson as saying that Suri is an "Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention. We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly," the spokesperson said.

Suri's detention comes less than a week after Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia University, self-deported after her visa was revoked for allegedly “advocating for violence and terrorism” and involvement in activities supporting Hamas.

Srinivasan had entered the United States on an F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security had said.

It added that Srinivasan was “involved in activities supporting” Hamas, a terrorist organisation.

The Department of State had revoked her visa on March 5. The Department of Homeland Security said it has obtained video footage of Srinivasan using the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App to self-deport on March 11.