CHICAGO (WLS) — The death toll continues to rise after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake rattled much of Southeast Asia on Friday, resulting in mounting casualties and flattened skyscrapers from Myanmar to Thailand.

A Chicago native living in Thailand spoke with ABC7 Sunday and describe the scary moments during the quake.

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Naquinna Edjang, Chicago woman who just moved to Thailand to teach, is speaking out after the devastating natural disaster.

Edjang described what it was like when the earthquake hit.

“It was just the most terrifying experience ever,” Edjang said. “I was in my apartment, and things started to shift and started to move, but I’m like, ‘There’s no way, like I’m moving. How is my physical body moving?’ And then I see the door is actually moving, which kind of confirmed to me that this building is actually moving. So I immediately run out. I hear my neighbors beginning to unlock their doors, and so we’re all running down the stairs as fast as we can. I go down, I see the pool, the water in the pool is going into the air… I’m still trying to process it all at the same time as I’m watching the water just rise into the air. Then I realize it’s an earthquake, and it’s real. This is real life.”

Edjang lives on the outskirts of Bangkok, not far where a building under construction collapsed. She escaped the quake unhurt.

The epicenter was in Mandalay, Myanmar, the country’s second-largest city, some 600 miles away from Bangkok.

READ MORE | Myanmar earthquake death toll rises to 1,644 as resistance movement announces partial ceasefire

ABC News contributed to this report.