Officers questioned four Chinese men who were found removing 32 files from containers behind the collapsed building, a police official said.

Poorly paid migrant workers from Myanmar have built many of Bangkok’s glittering high-rises, including the one that collapsed in Friday’s earthquake.

The Chinese embassy in Bangkok has called for full cooperation with the Thai authorities’ investigation into the State Audit Office collapse.

Workers said poor-quality materials were used during construction by a Chinese developer as it sought to cut costs. Investigators also said they found substandard steel bars in the rubble.

The governor of Bangkok says authorities are investigating why a high-rise building under construction collapsed during an earthquake that otherwise caused limited damage in the Thai capital.

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake rattled much of Southeast Asia on Friday, flattening skyscrapers and leaving more than 1,000 people dead from Myanmar to Thailand.

A 7.7 magnitude shallow earthquake, one of Myanmar's strongest in a century, jolted the civil war-torn Southeast Asian nation on Friday afternoon, leaving thousands of people dead, flattening roads, and destroying buildings hundreds of miles away in Thailand.

At least 15 people are thought to still be alive and trapped under the rubble of a Bangkok skyscraper that collapsed after a massive earthquake hit Myanmar and Thailand. Rescuers say they have detected signs of life and communicated with some survivors under the 10-storey tall mountain of debris.