On 28 March 2025 a 7.7 earthquake struck the Sagaing Region of Myanmar, with an epicenter close to Mandalay, the country's second-largest city. The strike-slip shock achieved a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar since 1912, and the second deadliest in Myanmar's modern history, surpassed only by upper estimates of the 1930 Bago earthquake. The earthquake caused extensive damage in Myanmar and significant damage in neighboring Thailand. Hundreds of homes were also damaged in Yunnan, China, while more than 300 apartments were affected in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The earthquake killed as many as 4,940 in Myanmar, 36 in Thailand and 1 in Vietnam. Up to 6,200 people were injured and hundreds more were reported missing, including at a collapsed construction site in Bangkok, whose shallow geology makes it more vulnerable to seismic waves from far away and increases the city's susceptibility to earthquake-related impacts. Authorities in both Myanmar and Thailand declared a state of emergency. As the earthquake struck during Friday prayer hours, collapsing mosques resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Muslims. In addition, more than 670 Buddhist monasteries and 290 pagodas were damaged by the quake. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar has exacerbated the difficulty of disaster relief and info exposure.It is the deadliest earthquake globally since the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes.
Even though the south-east Asian nation of Myanmar is a high risk region for earthquakes, neighboring Thailand and China - which were also affected by the quake - are not.
The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday's earthquake - and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.
Here we will explain what caused this earthquake, and how it was able to have such a powerful effect so far away.
What caused the earthquake?
The earth's upper layer is split into different sections, called tectonic plates, which are all moving constantly. Some move alongside each other, whilst others are above and below each other.
It is this movement that causes earthquakes and volcanoes.
Myanmar is considered to be one of the most geologically "active" areas in the world because it sits on top of the convergence of four of these tectonic plates - the Eurasian plate, the Indian plate, the Sunda plate and the Burma microplate.
The Himalayas were formed by the Indian plate colliding with the Eurasian plate, and the 2004 Tsunami as a result of the Indian plate moving beneath the Burma microplate.
Dr Rebecca Bell, a reader in tectonics at Imperial College London, said that to accommodate all of this motion, faults - cracks in the rock - form which allow tectonic plates to "slither" sideways.
There is a major fault called the Sagaing fault, which cuts right through Myanmar north to south and is more than 1,200km (746 miles) long.
#rescue #scary #earthquake
The earthquake killed as many as 4,940 in Myanmar, 36 in Thailand and 1 in Vietnam. Up to 6,200 people were injured and hundreds more were reported missing, including at a collapsed construction site in Bangkok, whose shallow geology makes it more vulnerable to seismic waves from far away and increases the city's susceptibility to earthquake-related impacts. Authorities in both Myanmar and Thailand declared a state of emergency. As the earthquake struck during Friday prayer hours, collapsing mosques resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Muslims. In addition, more than 670 Buddhist monasteries and 290 pagodas were damaged by the quake. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar has exacerbated the difficulty of disaster relief and info exposure.It is the deadliest earthquake globally since the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes.
Even though the south-east Asian nation of Myanmar is a high risk region for earthquakes, neighboring Thailand and China - which were also affected by the quake - are not.
The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday's earthquake - and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.
Here we will explain what caused this earthquake, and how it was able to have such a powerful effect so far away.
What caused the earthquake?
The earth's upper layer is split into different sections, called tectonic plates, which are all moving constantly. Some move alongside each other, whilst others are above and below each other.
It is this movement that causes earthquakes and volcanoes.
Myanmar is considered to be one of the most geologically "active" areas in the world because it sits on top of the convergence of four of these tectonic plates - the Eurasian plate, the Indian plate, the Sunda plate and the Burma microplate.
The Himalayas were formed by the Indian plate colliding with the Eurasian plate, and the 2004 Tsunami as a result of the Indian plate moving beneath the Burma microplate.
Dr Rebecca Bell, a reader in tectonics at Imperial College London, said that to accommodate all of this motion, faults - cracks in the rock - form which allow tectonic plates to "slither" sideways.
There is a major fault called the Sagaing fault, which cuts right through Myanmar north to south and is more than 1,200km (746 miles) long.
#rescue #scary #earthquake
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