YANGON: A powerful earthquake that struck Myanmar on Sunday left at least 13 dead and 40 injured, a government official said, after the tremor sparked panic in the central city of Mandalay.

“According to the information we have so far, two people died and three were injured because of the earthquake, while five are still missing,” the official in the capital Naypyidaw said.

The official said that the missing were workers flung into the Irrawaddy river when the quake shook the bridge they were building in an area north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.

One man died and three were injured by buildings collapsing in a small town in central Sagaing region. A woman was also killed by falling debris from a brick wall in a village north of Mandalay.

The shallow 6.8-magnitude quake hit at 7:42 am around 116 kilometers north of Mandalay at a depth of just 10 kilometers, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. It was followed by a series of strong aftershocks.

Construction standards are generally poor in the country formerly known as Burma, one of Asia’s most impoverished nations.

A large crack stretching from the second to the sixth floor of Mandalay’s highest building, the 25-storey Mann Myanmar Plaza, appeared after the quake, a local resident said.

It comes little more than a week before US President Barack Obama is due in Myanmar on a historic visit, as the West begins to roll back sanctions to reward a series of dramatic political reforms under President Thein Sein.