A rescuer in the Burmese city of Mandalay has told the BBC he is digging through rubble with his bare hands, trying to free people calling for help, after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar on Friday.

“People are screaming help me, help me. I feel so hopeless,” said the man, who is part of a rescue team made up of citizens.

Another survivor revealed how she could hear the voices of people trapped inside a hotel which had collapsed.

“I can hear mothers crying, friends, because their children are still inside the building. It’s desperate to watch,” the woman – a teacher – said.

“This earthquake is a total disaster,” she continued. “We need help.”

According to official figures, at least 144 people have lost their lives in Myanmar, with more than 700 injured.

But building up a clear picture of exactly what is happening across the South East Asian nation is not easy.

Access has been limited since 2021, when the military took power following a coup. Foreign journalists are rarely allowed to enter officially due to a lack of press freedom.

Many of the people who spoke to the BBC, and other outlets, did not give their names for security reasons.

When the earthquake hit, people – some with injuries – were running in the streets, screaming and crying, one rescue worker said, and the city’s General Hospital was almost full with patients.

Mandalay has become the “scene of a tragedy”, one survivor told the BBC.

“It’s like a ruined city. Some are still stuck under rubble,” she said. “It was so severe. So severe that I have never seen anything shaking like that.”

The tremors were so strong they were felt well beyond Myanmar’s borders – in China and Thailand.

In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, social media images showed collapsed buildings, including parts of the historic royal palace.

A 90-year-old bridge crumbled, while sections of the main highway linking Yangon, , Myanmar’s largest city, to Mandalay were torn apart.

A resident in Yangon told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme the shakes were “quite intense” and lasted for around four minutes.

The man, who wished to stay anonymous for security reasons, described waking from a nap to the building shaking violently.

“It lasted around three to four minutes,” he said. “I was receiving messages from friends and realising that it was not just in Yangon, but also many places across the country.”

In the area of Myanmar’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw, a rescuer told the BBC they went to a house where someone was trapped inside, but it “was not possible to take them out”.

The worker later carried out a body and one person in critical condition from a goldsmith’s shop. People in charge of the shop told them 17 people were still trapped.

“We can only find people where we can hear them,” the rescuer said.

Myanmar officials declared a “mass casualty area” at Nay Pyi Taw General Hospital, where patients lay on gurneys outside, intravenous drips hanging from makeshift stands.

The military junta also made a rare appeal for international assistance, declaring a state of emergency across six regions.

“We want the international community to send humanitarian aid as soon as possible,” Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said.

Global aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told the BBC it was struggling to access impacted areas.

Its team dispatched on Friday had to turn back because key roads have been damaged, including an express highway that goes from Yangon to Naypyidaw and Mandala, the charity’s Myanmar mission head Federica Franco said.

“The situation is very complicated because there are significant communication blackouts in some of the hardest hit areas, and this is due to the ongoing conflict,” Franco said.

People outside of Mandalay and Myanmar have also had difficulty reaching loved ones.

Shin Thant Sanar, a student from Myanmar at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC she woke up to a frantic call from her mother. Panic filled her mother’s voice as she said buildings had collapsed all around her.

“Moments later, my aunt walked in, crying; she had lost everything. It was a heart-breaking moment, made even worse when phone lines were cut off,” the student said.

None of her family was injured, “but the destruction is overwhelming”, she said.

“As it was Friday prayer time there, I learned that many people were inside mosques which also collapsed, injuring many and causing fatalities.

“The streets and buildings I grew up around are now unrecognisable.”

A BBC Burmese reporter in Bangkok felt the earthquake and frantically tried to reach friends and family in their home in Myanmar, but could not connect for a long time.

When they did, a Mandalay resident told them several buildings had collapsed and lamp posts had been uprooted.

“The city is a complete mess and completely destroyed,” the resident said.

Guilaume D’Agaro, an English teacher in Yangon, said the earthquake was “very scary for the kids”, who are between three and 12 years old.

He was experiencing power cuts and internet interruptions, which he said “increases the difficulty to get in contact with friends and family in Mandalay”.

“We are just hoping, that is the only thing we can do,” he said. “We feel out of control.”

Additional reporting by Liz Roberts, Kristina Volk and Ko Ko Aung