Featured Image Credit: Viral Press
Topics: World News, Environment, Parenting
Anish Vij
A hero father leapt across a crumbling apartment block in Thailand to save his family after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck in neighbouring Myanmar.
Kwon Young-jun, from Seoul, South Korea, was 'exercising on the 52nd floor' of a 672ft apartment block when the aftershock from Mandalay was felt in the Thai capital, Bangkok, on 28 March.
The three buildings in the condominium complex were connected by sky bridges while Kwon's wife Sukanya and daughter were in the next block. Suddenly the bridge started to collapse and debris was falling to the ground.
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Quick-thinking Kwon said: "All I could think about was getting back down to the room to save my wife and child. I realised it was an earthquake and the building was breaking apart, but I saw the gap and just jumped."
Watch the terrifying moment below:
The father-of-one - who admitted that he 'was just worried' about his child - added: "I had to go and take care of my wife and daughter. The concrete had partly separated at that moment, and I heard a loud bang after I had jumped over.
"After that, I kept running without looking back, thinking only of my family."
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After Kwon jumped the building, however, he realised that his family had already evacuated. He then had to walk down over 40 floors to be with them.
Sukanya said 'the events that day happened so fast', as 'instinct took over and he jumped across the buildings'.
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The family has now temporarily moved to another district to live with Sukanya's parents.
This comes after the developer of the condominium said that the building is still safe enough to stay in after inspections were done.
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The structure of the connecting bridge also remains intact. It is designed to be attached to only one building, which allows for the connecting section to move during earthquakes.
Now, more than 2,000 people have been reported as dead, and more than 3,000 are injured in Myanmar, at the time of writing.
“The death toll and injuries are expected to rise,” the head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said last week.
One case saw rescue crews pull a 26-year-old man out from the rubble of the capital city hotel where he worked.
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An endoscopic camera was used to pinpoint Naing Lin Tun’s location after he was trapped in the capital Naypyitaw for 108 hours.
Although he was alive, most teams are finding only dead bodies five days after the earthquake hit the country.