As the critical 72-hour window approaches, families of missing workers in Bangkok wait anxiously for news. The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar has left 18 dead, 76 missing, and hope is running thin.

The epicenter, in Burma, was 1,000 kilometers away, but the quake toppled a large building under construction that has buried 76 workers. Bangkok rises under a leaden sky that casts a halo of pessimism over the grief-stricken families,

Officers questioned four Chinese men who were found removing 32 files from containers behind the collapsed building, a police official said.

Three days after a Bangkok skyscraper collapsed in the wake of a devastating earthquake in neighbouring Myanmar, Naruemol Thonglek is still praying that her boyfriend will emerge from the immense pile of rubble where the building once stood.