Hopes are fading for people trapped beneath rubble in Myanmar and Thailand with the passing of a crucial 72-hour rescue window after which survival rates fall sharply.

The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum for relief donations in Naypyitaw that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing, Myanmar’s state MRTV television reported.

Aid groups in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said there was an urgent need for shelter, food and water after an earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people.

Although the official number of dead stands at around 2,000, the military junta has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters. Here in Thailand's capital Bangkok, meanwhile, dozens of construction workers remain buried under the rubble of a collapsed unfinished skyscraper.