The natural disaster compounds humanitarian concerns in a country already in the throes of a devastating civil war

B ANGKOK — A unilateral partial ceasefire to facilitate earthquake relief efforts was announced on Saturday by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, which coordinates the popular struggle against the ruling military. The country's death toll from the disaster soared to 1,644.

A rescue team in Mandalay, the city closest to the earthquake's epicentre, tells the BBC they "are digging people out with our bare hands".

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 massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed at least 2,

The woman was pulled from the rubble of the Great Wall Hotel in the city of Mandalay, according to a Chinese government post on Facebook. Mandalay is near the epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday that wreaked mass devastation in Myanmar and damage in neighbouring Thailand.

Myanmar's neighbours sent warships and aircraft laden with relief materials and rescue personnel on Sunday, as international aid gained steam after a massive earthquake ravaged much of the poor Southeast Asian nation.

More than 2,000 people have been killed and 3,000 injured after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit Myanmar last Friday.

The death toll in last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar has passed 2,000, state media said Monday, as accounts of some people’s last moments emerged: Two hundred Buddhist monks crushed by a collapsing monastery.

At least three hospitals in the country are out of service, according to the World Health Organisation, three days after a powerful earthquake hit the country.