That is big. Praying the people are okay and safe from Tsunamis. The Netflix documentary about the Boxing Day 2004 disaster is excellent.
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Sadly didn't receive a notification from Android this time, last time I got it about ten seconds before the shaking began.
Nothing compared to the high rise collapse though :/
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.
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.
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.
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
And according to some Googling, they had only disabled it in Brazil while investigating why the false alarm happened.
1. https://www.theverge.com/news/613572/google-earthquake-detec...
Mandalay looks to be almost exactly in the center of the worst of it...
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=96191531281452...
I think that’s the most scared I’ve ever been, thinking that was it for me.
Close up: https://x.com/nongmeaw33/status/1905511502435791007
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar_civil_war_(2021%E2%8...
Myanmar is on the border between a failed state and one in civil war [1]. Put simply, we will probably never know the fatality county because there is nobody who can reliably do the counting.
[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.
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.
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.
Sadly, hundreds of similar incidents happened across the border in Myanmar, as the epicenter is right outside of Myanmar's 2nd largest city.
I told my wife: it is an earthquake, did you notice? Look: I pointed to the frame of a door so that she could hold herself there to notice the shaking. Lean on it and do not move. She said: no, it is you. I turn back: look at the hanging lamp. The lamp was zig-zagging lol. Actually you can throw a nuclear bomb when my wife is taking a nap and she would continue sleeping. She is so insensitive for those things...
So when we went downstairs like 30 or 40 more people had also left their homes. It could also be noticed from Hanoi.
Here people noticed it in district 3, 10, Thu Duc, Binh Thanh and District 2 at least.
It was just replicas but hey, noticeable.
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”
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.
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.
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?
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.
https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/laos-and-cambodia-dont-inclu...
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?
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.)
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.
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...
> 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...
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
(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...
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 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 collapse must have been due to a design or construction mistake.
Up until mid-2000's, the entire country was reliant on a single – modem – internet connection to Singapore (the Singaporean government had a long history of propping up successions of military governments in Myanmar until China arrived on the scene).
Myanmar’s internet infrastructure was limited and tightly controlled, but it was not dependent on a single modem connection to Singapore. In the 1990s-2000s, Myanmar had rudimentary internet via satellite links and state-controlled gateways. The first internet services were introduced in the 2000s, primarily via Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), often routed through various international satellite providers.
> the Singaporean government had a long history of propping up successions of military governments in Myanmar until China arrived on the scene
Singapore has historically maintained business and diplomatic ties with Myanmar, also during military rule; and yes, some unscrupulous Singapore-based firms sell arms to the junta. But saying Singapore propped up military regimes suggests active political or military support by the government, which is factually incorrect. Most regional engagement with Myanmar, including by Singapore, was done through ASEAN’s policy of non-interference.
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...
> In the 1990s-2000s, Myanmar had rudimentary internet via satellite links and state-controlled gateways.
Satellite internet did not exist in the 1990s and in the early 2000s. Iridium, the first commercial provider of internet access via satellites, began the deployment of the satellites in 1997 and did not complete the deployment until 2005 – when global coverage was achieved. The 1st generation of Iridium suffered from very slow speeds, poor reception inside buildings, and – most importantly – required prohibitively expensive equipment to connect to the satellites. Such equipment was entirely out of reach for any impoverished country, such as Myanmar at the time.
Myanmar Post started offering email service (not full internet service!) around 1997, where the email was stored on a central server and was routinely delayed because each email had to be reviewed by a junta-appointed censor before being relayed via a modem (even if it was IDSN, it was still a single modem connection) to an ISP in Singapore. Burmese hotels did not have websites back then; they had email addresses hosted on that central server instead. Extremely limited internet access was only allowed via internet cafes, which were prohibitively expensive to the locals (deliberately) who were presented with the sanitised, local Burmese «intranet» and access to a very limited number of global websites that the junta had sanctioned. I have the second-hand experience of this as a close friend of mine was travelling in Burma at the time, and our communication was severely hampered, partially for this reason.
> But saying Singapore propped up military regimes suggests active political or military support by the government, which is factually incorrect.
This is factually correct, the SG government is absolutely complicit, and it is the sole reason why the military junta has managed to survive.
SG has been the largest economic investor in Myanmar since the crackdown of the 8888 Uprising in 1988, and the SG government semi-openly or covertly has supported the military rule since then, with Lee Kuan Yew going on to state in 1996 that Burma could only be ruled by the military suggesting democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi stay «behind a fence, and be a symbol»[0]. For the record, Lee Kuan Yew and Ne Win were also friends since 1962 – at least for a few decades.
Without the SG economic investment and the SG government support, the junta would have collapsed decades ago. This does not include other shenanigans, the SG government has been involved in, which has included providing a safe haven to former dictators Ne Win and Than Shwe, allowing them and their cronies to siphon the money they had embezzled from their people into Singaporean banks. The Singaporean banks have also been implicated in money laundering for Burmese heroin from the Golden Triangle as well as for their ties to Lo Hsing Han, which resulted in the US sanctioning Singaporean companies with connections to Lo. Since 2021 (the latest coup), Singapore has been a major equipment supplier for the junta's weapons factories, allowing the junta to continue on with their dirty business today. The list can go on and on. This does not include other shady shenanigans that the SG businesses, with the tacit approval of their government, have been involved with (arms shipments, etc.). None of that has gained any love from the Burmese[1].
I happen to have a soft spot for Singapore, but let's not try to rewrite the history and swipe the dirt under the rug.
[0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/192263
[1] https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/commentary/suu-kyi-singapo...
Just to clarify: I wasn't deliberately trying to sweep dirt under the rug. I was under the impression that Singapore's government took a strong stance against the Burmese junta based on reporting like this: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/12/singapore-tightens-...
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.
