7.7 magnitude earthquake hits Southeast Asia, affecting Myanmar and Thailand

I am Myanmar and reporting from Bangkok.

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

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BYV644DmY/

shakemap: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000pn9s...

Mandalay looks to be almost exactly in the center of the worst of it...

and PAGER: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000pn9s...

> Estimated economic losses are 6-70% GDP of Burma.

6-70% holy crap what a range.

Probably meant 60-70%

60-70% loss in GDP would mean the literal end of the country, it's a ludicrously large figure no one could ever rebuild from. This is a 7.7 earthquake; it probably is 6–7% GBP which is still significant.

60% loss can be recouped by 10 years of compounding 5% growth.

Mathematically valid, but...

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.