However, the complex situation on the ground is likely to hamper search and rescue operations as well as the free flow of aid into the country.

Rescue workers operating in villages near Mandalay have told the BBC they do not have access to the heavy machinery needed to reach people trapped under the rubble. “We’re digging people out with our bare hands,” one man said.

The earthquake has added pressure to an already dire humanitarian situation in the country, where 3.5m people are estimated to have been displaced by fighting.

The Sagaing region, near the epicentre of the quake, is a volatile key battleground in the civil war.

Charities and opposition parties working in the country have raised concerns about the “politicisation” of aid in the coming days.

Montse Ferrer, the deputy director of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific at Amnesty International, told the BBC the junta has “a history of denying aid” to areas where resistance forces are active.

The tremors were felt hundreds of miles away in Thailand’s capital of Bangkok, where rescue teams worked through the night to free the construction workers trapped beneath the rubble.

Buildings across the city were evacuated, including a hospital holding patients in acute need of medical attention. A woman gave birth on the street amid the commotion, lying on a stretcher surrounded by hospital staff.

Bui Thu, a BBC journalist who lives in Bangkok, told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that she was at home cooking when the initial quake happened. “I was very nervous, I was very panicked,” she said.

“Buildings in Bangkok are not engineered for earthquakes, so I think that’s why I think there’s going to be big damage.”

Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited the site of the collapsed building on Friday afternoon.

Search and rescue teams using drones, sniffer dogs and diggers have been mobilised and disaster centres set up to help with the rescue operation.