Sophie Monk’s terrifying escape from Thai hotel as 7.7 magnitude quake rocks southeast Asia
Australian celebrity Sophie Monk has posted video recounting how she escaped her Thailand hotel as the deadly 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck killing hundreds. WARNING: Graphic
Asia
Don't miss out on the headlines from Asia. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Sophie Monk has described the terrifying moment she felt a Thailand hotel sway from side to side during a massive earthquake that struck while she was in a room on the 52nd floor.
The Australian celebrity and singer – who is in Bangkok – posted a video of herself fleeing the building explaining that she had just experienced the “scariest ever earthquake”.
“I have never experienced anything like this,” she said on social media.
“[We were] on the 52nd floor, so the building was going side to side.
“We ran down the emergency stairs and made it out. That will get your heart racing.
“I hope everyone is OK, it was so hectic.”
READ THE LATEST NEWS ON THE QUAKE DISASTER HERE
Ms Monk shared footage of herself running down flights of stairs following the deadly tremor. In another video, she claimed there were “no alarms or anything giving instructions” in the hotel following the quake.
In the footage she can be heard calling out to another person who had asked if they could come down the stairs. “I don’t know,” Ms Monk responds, before the group eventually decides to keep making their way down.
Thousands are feared dead after the powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked Southeast Asia, bringing down a towering skyscraper in Thailand and toppling buildings, including a mosque, in neighbouring Myanmar where the quake’s epicentre was recorded.
More than 144 people have been killed and more than 700 injured in Myanmar but, with communications disrupted, the true scale of the disaster has yet to emerge from the isolated military-ruled state.
It was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in over a century, according to US geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre, some reaching China.
Myanmar was the worst hit and, after four years of civil war sparked by a military coup, the country’s healthcare and emergency response systems are desperately understaffed.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid, indicating the severity of the calamity. Previous military regimes have shunned foreign assistance even after major natural disasters.
The country declared a state of emergency across the six worst-affected regions after the quake, and at one major hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, medics were forced to treat the wounded in the open air.
One official described it as a “mass casualty area”.
“I haven’t seen (something) like this before. We are trying to handle the situation. I’m so exhausted now,” a doctor told AFP.
Mandalay, a city of more than 1.7 million people, appeared to have been badly hit. AFP photos showed dozens of buildings reduced to rubble.
A resident reached by phone told AFP that a hospital and a hotel had been destroyed, and said the city was badly lacking in rescue personnel.
A huge queue of buses and lorries lined up at a checkpoint to enter the capital early on Saturday.
The quake caused widespread destruction across the war-torn country and the death toll could rise into the thousands.
Harrowing scenes emerged of bodies being lined up in the rubble as rescuers scoured for survivors from the quake, whose epicentre was detected near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city.
Although the extent of death and destruction wasn’t immediately clear, the US Geological Survey (USGS) issued a red alert — estimating that deaths could range between 1,000 and 10,000.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude tremor hit northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar, and was followed minutes later by a 6.4-magnitude aftershock.
Hospitals were evacuated, with one woman delivering her baby outdoors after being moved from a hospital building.
A surgeon also continued to operate on a patient after evacuating, completing the operation outside, a spokesman told AFP.
As night fell, AFP journalists saw rescuers trying to extract a mother and son from the ruins of a collapsed building in Naypyidaw.
American President Donald Trump vowed the United States would assist when he was told of the unfolding disaster.
“It’s terrible,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office about the quake when asked if he would respond to the appeal by Myanmar’s military rulers.
“It’s a real bad one, and we will be helping. We’ve already spoken with the country.”
Myanmar’s junta has meanwhile been fostering ties with key ally Russia, with leader Min Aung Hlaing visiting President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month.
The two countries are talking about a plan for Moscow to help build a small nuclear power plant in Myanmar.
HIGH-RISE UNDER CONSTRUCTION COLLAPSES
Rescuers in the Thai capital worked through the night searching for workers trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed, reduced in seconds to a pile of rubble and twisted metal by the force of the shaking.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt told AFP that around 10 people had been confirmed killed across the city, most in the skyscraper collapse.
But up to 100 workers were still unaccounted for at the building, close to the Chatuchak weekend market that is a magnet for tourists.
“We are doing our best with the resources we have because every life matters,” Chadchart told reporters at the scene.
“Our priority is acting as quickly as possible to save them all.” Bangkok city authorities said they will deploy more than 100 engineers to inspect buildings for safety after receiving over 2,000 reports of damage.
Up to 400 people were forced to spend the night in the open air in city parks as their homes were not safe to return to, Chadchart said.
Significant quakes are extremely rare in Bangkok, and Friday’s tremors sent shoppers and workers rushing into the street in alarm across the city.
As night fell, around 100 rescue workers assembled at the scene to search for survivors, illuminated by specially erected floodlights.
The massive Bangkok building intended for government offices was reduced to a tangle of rubble and twisted metal in seconds, with some reports saying 81 workers were still trapped in the toppled skyscraper.
The quake violently shook many buildings across Bangkok – where strong tremors are almost unheard of – leaving workers and shoppers rushing into the street in shock.
“At first, I thought I was sick – like I was getting dizzy or about to faint. Then I noticed the lanterns were moving,” said Hongsinunt, who like many other office workers fled her Bangkok building.
An emergency zone was declared in Bangkok, where some metro and light rail services were suspended.
The streets of the capital were full of commuters attempting to walk home, or simply taking refuge in the entrances of malls and office buildings.
City authorities said parks would stay open overnight for those unable to sleep at home.
Dramatic video footage showed the tremor rocking a high-rise hotel, with water from its rooftop pool whipping over the building’s edge.
“I was shopping inside a mall when I noticed some signs moving, so I quickly ran outside,” said Attapong Sukyimnoi, a broker.
“I knew I had to get to an open space – it was instinct.”
Roads nearby were buckled and broken by the tremors and the route to one of the city’s biggest hospitals was jammed with traffic.
The hospital was a “mass casualty area” after the quake, officials said. An ambulance made its way between vehicles, a paramedic shouting “cars, move aside so the ambulance can get through.”
At the 1,000-bed hospital, the wounded were being treated in the street outside, intravenous drips hanging from their gurneys.
Some writhed in pain, others lay still as relatives sought to comfort them. The tremors send people into the streets across both countries.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra declared a state of emergency.
Earlier she said she had interrupted an official visit to the southern island of Phuket to hold an “urgent meeting” after the quake, according to a post on X.
Terrifying tremors also rocked the northern city of Chiang Mai, popular with tourists.
Receptionist Baitoey Pradit Sa On said when the quake hit all the guests rushed from her hotel.
“It was chaotic … even the water splashed out of the pool,” she said, pointing at the soaked area around it.
“I heard it and I was sleeping in the house, I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building,” Duangjai, a resident of Chiang Mai, told AFP.
Sai, a 76-year-old Chiang Mai resident, was working at a minimart when the shop started the shake.
“I quickly rushed out of the shop along with other customers,” he said. “This is the strongest tremor I’ve experienced in my life.”
7.7 magnitude earthquake hits Southeast Asia, mainly impacting Myanmar and Thailand.
— Pop Base (@PopBase) March 28, 2025
pic.twitter.com/hIEgS2w712
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 centre of the country, according to the USGS.
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 breakneck pace of development in Myanmar’s cities, combined with crumbling infrastructure and poor urban planning, has also made the country’s most populous areas vulnerable to earthquakes and other disasters, experts say.
The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.
Tremors were also felt in China’s southwest Yunnan province, according to Beijing’s quake agency, which said the jolt measured 7.9 in magnitude.
Footage shared on Instagram shows a pool in a high-rise building violently overflowing from the shock, throwing lots of water to the streets below.
– With AFP
More Coverage
Originally published as Sophie Monk’s terrifying escape from Thai hotel as 7.7 magnitude quake rocks southeast Asia
Grim update on deadly quake disaster
Hopes of finding more survivors are fading after a massive earthquake killed at least 1,700 people in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand.
‘Human tragedy’: Albanese vows $2m for quake aid
Australia has joined the global aid effort after the devastating quake in Myanmar and Thailand, as Aussie witnesses tell of the terrifying moment disaster struck. Follow the updates.