Myanmar quake death toll surpasses 1,600 as rescuers dig through rubble

The search-and-rescue operation has involved crews from the police, military and disaster relief, using drones, dogs and heavy equipment to search through the mountain of rubble, concrete, steel, dirt and rebar.

The painstaking work has been underway for more than 24 hours, peeling back layers of debris in the hope of finding any of the dozens believed to be trapped underneath. Even as the hope of survival fades, the crews plan to work through the night.

NBC News witnessed one body being recovered earlier Saturday. Heavy equipment was used to remove a large chunk of rebar and concrete, which exposed a small pocket where the recovery team found the body.

Further complicating both the rescue and potential survival are high temperatures in Bangkok, reaching around 100 degrees for most of the day.

In Myanmar, a reclusive state run by a military government that tightly controls information, there are limited details on the full scale of death and destruction. In one video verified by NBC News, a group of monks in vermillion robes, crouched beside the crumbled remains of a clock tower, watch as another building collapses in the distance.

Another clip captures the moment the golden peak of a Buddhist monastery crumbled into pieces in Pindaya, and images showed hospitals overwhelmed with the injured, as well as widespread damage to buildings across Myanmar.

With rescue and recovery operations ongoing, the BBC’s Burmese service reported the sounds of people screaming from within the debris of a collapsed high-rise in Mandalay, where about 50 people had already been pulled from the rubble.

Myanmar’s military government declared a state of emergency in multiple regions, including Mandalay and Naypyidaw, and said search-and-rescue operations were underway in the hardest-hit areas.

“The full extent of destruction caused by this earthquake may not be clear for weeks,” Mohammed Riyas, the International Rescue Committee director for Myanmar, said in a statement Friday.

The disaster is further compounded by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, which has raged for four years — limiting access to aid, straining resources and leaving millions already in crisis even before the earthquake hit.

According to the International Rescue Committee, Myanmar has more than 19 million people in urgent need of humanitarian aid, with many displaced, facing food insecurity and suffering from a health care…