Posted by testrun 3/28/2025
I was upstairs, at third floor and was going down to have lunch and it shook whole house. At first I thought I am having nausea due to not having any food yet then thing starts to shake violently almost knocked me off stairs . And glasses started to rumble.
A construction in Pathunam collapsed.
Some house of friends of mine in Mandalay - Myanmar collapsed. One girl managed to get out in time.
One construction in Mandalay collapsed - 2 died.
Historic Mandalay Palace wall and entrance collapsed .
Airport in naypyitaw collapsed, there are report of many airport workers died.
Bridges collapsed, one of the longest standing historic bridges of Myanmar - Sagaing Bridge collapsed.
One other bridge in Mandalay brings down two cars with it, casualties unknown.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18bsATAEKS/
Many Junta gov buildings collapsed
Mandalay looks to be almost exactly in the center of the worst of it...
(Note: since earthquake magnitude is correlated with the amount of area moved, it is safe to assume that larger earthquake will have larger fault rupture)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_eart... [2] https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.118...
Do you know if the line source model comes from having more and better seismographs or has there been a change in how people think about the motion of a fault in an earthquake?
> The length of fault running 260 km (160 mi) from 19.2°N to 21.5°N, on the Meiktila segment, is designated a seismic gap due to the absence of major earthquake ruptures since at least 1897. At least 2 m (6 ft 7 in) of slip has accumulated along the fault corresponding to a magnitude 7.9 earthquake.
Science did pretty well here with the magnitude. Wonder how much more research is needed to be able to predict an event let's say a full minute before it happens...
6-70% holy crap what a range.
That page is estimating fatalities of 10k to 100k people and economic losses of 10B to 100B USD.
(For context: Myanmar GDP is about 67B USD, according to Wolfram Alpha.)
If so, it isn’t surprising there’s a lot of uncertainty in their estimates.
Also look at the histogram with of “Estimated Fatalities”. The highlighted bar is for “10,000 to 100,000”
I’m pretty sure China can dig around in their couch cushions and help them out, the military junta is heavily reliant on China already.
Probably the ‘shadow GDP’ of Myanmar from heroin and scam call centers is higher than the official GDP, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/laos-and-cambodia-dont-inclu...
If Myanmar had a stable and reliably growing economy, the world would be a different place.
Turning Myanmar into a country with a stable economy that could grow at 5% annually would be worthy of a Nobel Prize in economics.
Practically, recovery costs in the neighborhood of 60% of Myanmar's GDP represents many decades of development. Or enormous foreign aid from China. I'm not sure how valuable Myanmar is to China though.
Also, 10 years of constant 5% growth is a lot to ask for in general. Maybe not impossible, but really hard. Now, think that you need to have 5% growth in the first year after the earthquake, in a devastated nation. Infrastructure destroyed, people killed. Lots.
It sounds pretty near to impossible.
These numbers have some meaning you know. It's easy to type "5% growth". Much, much harder to actually achieve it.
How is the dead part of the population being replaced in this scenario? Who is achieving this growth if the population is decimated?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%8...
Much of Saigang, Rakhine, and Kachin might be cut off from the rest of Myanmar, dramatically affecting logistics (though I think land logistics to Rakhine have already largely ended before the earthquake)
Also, I hope your family hasn't been drastically impacted.
Glad to hear! That is a massive silver lining!
Wonder whether that's just automated simulation output, rather than actual measurements from stations? Numbers 3 and 4:
3 - Felt noticeably indoors, especially in tops of buildings, yet many do not even notice there's an earthquake.
4 - Felt indoors by many, felt outside by few. Sensation like heavy truck striking a building.
Bangkok's reporting sensations, crowd behavior, and events more like a 6 to 7. Everybody runs, furniture moves, plaster falls, considerable damage to poorly built (partially finished) structures. A 3-4 is like, you barely notice, or think a really heavy vehicle just crashed or something. Not, everybody in town runs in panic, describes all the ceilings collapsing, cracks in walls afterward. [1][2][3][4]
Expect there's probably going to be some re-evaluation of the magnitude and scale of the earthquake based on what was actually reported by observers, cameras, and damage afterward. They're reporting slight damage and cracks even in relatively well constructed buildings.
Edit: This story from ChannelNewsAsia in Singapore has camera footage from somebody on the ground near the skyscraper collapse. Visibly shaking the camera holder. [5]
[1] Intensity, Text Descriptions: https://sciencefest.indiana.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/m...
[2] Semi-common Cone Chart with Energy Comparison: https://basecampconnect.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/eartq...
[3] Japanese Chart with Pictures: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*Ca_yV0l_zkWiFtg...
[4] Another Picture Chart: https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/...
[5] ChannelNewsAsia, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/massive-quake-kills-nea...
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tuned-mass-damper-of-tai...
Some cities closer to the epicenter, such as Chiang Mai, are also on floodplains, but have many fewer high-rise buildings. Some smaller condo blocks there have been deemed unsafe after the earthquake.
https://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/citynews/general/following...
Even so, they are only describing the peak values, it does not describe the ground motion frequency or other ground motion characteristic [4]. It is hard to compress a complex phenomenon into single value.
My colleagues suspect that the soil condition in Bangkok (soft soil and basin) and the distance from the epicenter amplifies long period/low frequency content of earthquake waves, making skycraper to be more vulnerable to damages. Example of basin effect is 1985 Mexico City Earthquake [2] and example of long period effect is the 2011 Tohoku EQ [3]
(Note: Magnitude value would probably be stable, they are based on the energy released by the earth (Moment Magnitude), Intensity is just the on-the-ground observation of the earthquake and it can be subjective.) [1] https://www.cwa.gov.tw/Data/service/hottopic/20191213_SC_New... ; https://www.ncdr.nat.gov.tw/CEOCworkshop/cwb_2.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_period_ground_motion [4] https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/WCEE2012_5499.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=96191531281452...
Damn, I was staying in a hotel right next to there only 6 weeks ago.
I remember getting to the hotel and seeing warnings not to use the elevator in case of earthquakes.
I think that’s the most scared I’ve ever been, thinking that was it for me.
Drowning multiple floors above sea level due to an earth quake. That’s insane!
So bizarre to see a lot more news coverage about places like Bangkok when the epicenter was on a large city in another country. But it's a reminder that information flows more slowly out of these closed societies
Early reports indicate significant damage in Naypyidaw, the new and thus not particularly large capital, and one spectacular but isolated construction site collapse in Bangkok, Thailand, quite far from the epicenter. I presume most of the damage will be in country towns near the epicenter, but Myanmar is dysfunctional at best of times and roiled by active civil war right now, so it'll take time for information to filter out.
Naypyidaw (3rd largest city) has almost 1 million people now.
Furthermore, the epicenter was right outside Mandalay (2nd largest city), which has a population of almost 2 million.
In addition, the epicenter is also smack dab in the Central Lowlands, where much of Myanmar's population lives. Around 7-10 million people must live within 200 miles of the epicenter.
Not your fault of course, but some tragedies are worth giving a moment of silence for.
Sadly didn't receive a notification from Android this time, last time I got it about ten seconds before the shaking began.
Some people are claiming that they received alerts from other apps that target Thai people, such as gaming app, novel reading app and call screening app. Even the SNS account of online gambling site (illegal in Thailand) managed to provide guidance faster than the government's own response. Red Tapes on triggering the warning means no one was even sure what is going on, and has to resort for self-reporting or SNS.
1. https://www.theverge.com/news/613572/google-earthquake-detec...
And according to some Googling, they had only disabled it in Brazil while investigating why the false alarm happened.
Close up: https://x.com/nongmeaw33/status/1905511502435791007
It’s extremely surreal to be sitting in sun, half way around the world, drinking coffee and watching these images.
It’s amazing and frightening at the same time - the disconnect between the folks affected by this disaster and me scrolling around here at HN.
At the same, the immediacy of world events and the inability to actual do anything about them.
For many this was their last day and may their rest in peace, tomorrow could be ours. Once again nature shows us who is boss.
Sadly, hundreds of similar incidents happened across the border in Myanmar, as the epicenter is right outside of Myanmar's 2nd largest city.
That is called trained helplessness. You could be on a flight today if you want. You could be donating to relief in minutes without leaving your computer chair.
But then I’ve scrolled on in HN (or wherever) and the next disaster has happened - the same feeling of disconnect.
The immediacy of social media makes everyone my neighbour - that’s what I was trying to say.
Do civil engineers take precautions for under-construction buildings? Do they minimize the risk somehow? I'm guessing there's inevitably a window during which an earthquake would be catastrophic, even if the end product is earthquake resistant.
Actually I think it would take special effort to make it so it's vulnerable during construction but safe at the end.
For example, do you think the foundation of the building is somehow weaker during construction but gets stronger at the end? How could that possibly work?
Framing is much more resistant to collapse once you put sheathing on it, a roof, etc. Before that it is easier to fall over.
A half built wood frame wall only supported at one end is like a wet noodle if you don't put in some temporary braces.
The collapse must have been due to a design or construction mistake.
I'm in Hanoi, also about 1,000km from the epicenter (similar to Bangkok). Some people apparently felt tremors and building fixtures shaking, but nothing as serious as the videos I saw in Bangkok.
Nothing compared to the high rise collapse though :/
