Exhausted, overwhelmed rescuers in Myanmar's second-biggest city pleaded for help Saturday as they struggled to free hundreds of people trapped in buildings destroyed by a devastating earthquake.

Friday's shallow 7.7-magnitude quake destroyed dozens of buildings in Mandalay, the country's cultural capital and home to more than 1.7 million people.

In one street, a monastery's clock tower lay collapsed on its side, its hands pointing to 12:55 pm -- just minutes after the time the quake struck.

Among the worst-hit buildings in the city is the Sky Villa Condominium development, where more than 90 people are feared to be trapped.

The building's 12 storeys were reduced to six by the quake, the cracked pastel green walls of the upper floors perched on the crushed remains of the lower levels.

A woman's body stuck out of the wreckage, her arm and hair hanging down.

Rescuers clambered over the ruins painstakingly removing pieces of rubble and wreckage by hand as they sought to open up passageways to those........

© International Business Times