A strong earthquake struck Myanmar near the Thai border yesterday, killing at least two people, including a child, officials from both countries said, with shaking felt across the region.

Terrified residents fled their homes, tall buildings swayed and hospitals and schools were evacuated after tremors spread as far away as Bangkok, almost 800 kilometres from the epicentre, Hanoi and parts of China.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) initially recorded the quake as magnitude 7.0, but later revised it down to 6.8. A powerful aftershock was later measured at magnitude 5.4. The epicentre was close to the borders with Thailand and Laos and was just 10 kilometres deep.

A Myanmar official said the youngster died in a town close to the border with Thailand. Another three people were reported to have been injured in a different part of the town, which was close to the epicentre of the quake, and a resident said he could feel a tremor.

“We have to lie down on the ground. The ward authorities are warning the people through loudspeakers to stay outside the buildings,” he said.

“We are really afraid to stay inside our houses tonight.”

Just across the border in Thailand, police in Mae Sai district said a 52-year-old woman was killed after a wall of her house collapsed.

Colonel Thanomsak Yospan, superintendent of Mae Sai district police, said that the woman’s home was poorly constructed and did not stand up to the tremor.

Chiang Rai governor Somchai Hatayatanti confirmed the woman’s death and said the aftershock felt in the area was “quite serious”.

He said efforts were made to evacuate people from tall buildings and he had ordered all patients from Mae Sai District Hospital to be taken to Chiang Rai.

The quake struck 90 kilometres north of Chiang Rai and 235 kilometres north-north-east of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city and a popular tourist destination. Tall buildings shuddered in Bangkok during the tremor.

In China, villagers around 40 kilometres from the Myanmar border in the southwestern province of Yunnan said buildings swayed for over a minute during the quake, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 350 students and teachers were evacuated from a school in Menghai County, Yunnan, after the building developed cracks, Xinhua said.