Search for earthquake survivors intensifies in Myanmar and Thailand; death toll surpasses 2.000.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Survivors were pulled from rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday, as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a major earthquake in Southeast Asia killed at least 2.000 people.

Rescue teams have freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a young girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, a city in central Myanmar, near the epicenter of Friday's 7,7 magnitude earthquake, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Chinese rescuers wearing red helmets carried a survivor, wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket, through piles of broken concrete and twisted metal in an apartment building in Mandalay, according to images shown by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Drone footage of the city showed a massive, multi-story building destroyed by layers of concrete, but some golden temples were still standing.

The civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, complicated efforts to help those injured and displaced by the country's worst earthquake in a century.

"Access to all victims is a problem (...) given the conflict situation. There are many security problems accessing some areas, especially on the front lines," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, told Reuters.

A rebel group claimed that the ruling military in Myanmar was still carrying out airstrikes on villages after the earthquake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to aid relief efforts.

In the Thai capital, Bangkok, rescue teams recovered another body from the rubble of a skyscraper under construction that collapsed during the earthquake, raising the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the construction site.

Search machines and sniffer dogs were sent to the site, and Bangkok's Deputy Governor, Tavida Kamolvej, said rescue teams were working urgently to figure out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days after the earthquake.

The real chances of survival decrease after 72 hours, she stated, adding: "We have to speed things up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours."

In Myanmar, state media reported that the death toll had reached 2.065 and more than 270 were missing, and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period starting Monday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing the junta, reported that the death toll had reached 2.028 in Myanmar, while the opposition's Government of National Accord, which includes remnants of the government ousted in 2021, put the death toll at 2.418 on Monday. Chinese state media said three Chinese citizens were among the dead.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death toll. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. The junta leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, warned over the weekend that the death toll could rise.