Reporting from Thailand

Image source, Getty Images

The minute’s silence will be begin at 12:51 local time (07:21 BST), the exact moment the earthquake struck on Friday.

Myanmar’s ruling military junta says national flags will fly at half-mast for five days and people should stop where they are to pay respect to the victims.

The regime has invited in aid and rescue help from around the world, including teams from Russia, China and the United States. But the scale of the task ahead appears overwhelming – aid groups are warning of disease outbreaks, while poor infrastructure and a patchwork of civil conflicts are severely hampering the relief effort.

The BBC’s Burmese Service has sent back images of the devastation from within Myanmar, where no rescue work is taking place.

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.