A comedian, originally from Mount Pearl, but now living in Bangkok Thailand, has had to be evacuated twice since a powerful earthquake hit Mandalay in Myanmar last Friday more than 1,300 km away.

The 7.7 magnitude quake has killed more than 2,000 people in Myanmar where Canadian Red Cross officials are calling the situation on the ground “dire.”

Despite the distance, the powerful quake was also felt in Bangkok, where a high rise under construction was toppled. Videos from the Thai capital show condos swaying and water from roof-top pools cascading like waterfalls.

Brian Aylward says an aftershock in Bangkok yesterday registered 6.4 on the Richter scale, prompting another evacuation order.

He says he and his wife Holly Dawson have a condo on the 25th floor of their building. He was about to do some yoga when the tremor hit. “All of a sudden the building started shaking, the refrigerator tipped over, walls started cracking. They don’t even really have that here,” says Aylward of earthquakes, “so it took me ten seconds or so to even have an idea what was going on, and then it was a mad rush down 25 flights of stairs.”

He says a lot of people had it worse, his wife, who teaches, had to get all the kids to shelter under their desks and then get them outside to safety.