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".

The new total of 1,644 is a sharp rise over the 1,002 total announced just hours earlier, underlining the difficulty of confirming casualties over a widespread region and the likelihood that the

The quake shook a swath of Southeast Asia. Myanmar’s military government said 144 people were killed in just three cities. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the death toll was likely to surpass 1,