Rescuers thought they had saved the life of Mathu Thu Lwin but were unable to resuscitate her after extracting her from the wreckage of the Sky Villa Condominium apartment complex, demolished by a huge earthquake which hit Myanmar on Friday.

It was a tragic end to a long struggle to free the 35-year-old with Chinese and Myanmar rescuers using a drill, a chainsaw and rotary saws to penetrate the concrete trapping her.

She was eventually brought out soon after 8:00 pm (0130 GMT) and doctors examined her, performing CPR on a gurney, but she was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

"We tried everything to save her," said one of the medical team, but she had lost too much blood from having a leg amputated to free her.

A makeshift operating theatre that had been prepared in an outbuilding to stabilise her went unused.

The Sky Villa Condominium was among the worst-affected buildings by Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake, which is so far known to have killed around 1,700 people in Myanmar.

The building's 12 storeys were reduced to six by the quake, the cracked pastel green walls of the upper floors perched on the crushed remains of the lower levels.