Written by David Stanway
SENGAFAR (Reuters) -A strong earthquake of 7.7 in the epic area near Mandalay, Myanmar, caused severe damage in that country, and defeated Thailand on Friday.
How weak is Myanmar to earthquakes?
Myanmar is located on the border between two tecton plates and is one of the most active countries in the world, although large and destructive earthquakes were relatively rare in the epic area.
“The boundaries of the painting between the India and Borrasia plate are a plate that passes almost north in the south, and it is abandoned by the middle of the country,” said Joanna Four Walker, a professor and an earthquake at College University London.
She said that the paintings exceed each other horizontally at different speeds. While this causes an “strike” earthquake, which is usually less powerful than those seen in “integration areas” such as Sumatra, where one plate slides under another, they can still reach sizes from 7 to 8.
Why was the Friday earthquake very harmful?
SAGAING has been exposed through many earthquakes in recent years, with a 6.8 -sized event, causing at least 26 deaths and dozens of injuries in late 2012.
But Friday, it was “perhaps the largest” hitting the main mainland of Myanmar in three quarters of a century, said Bill McGueri, another expert in an earthquake at the University of California.
Roger Morson, an honorary research colleague in British Geological Survey, told Reuters that the shallow depth of the earthquake means that the damage would be more severe. The earthquake center was only 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the geological survey of the United States.
“This is very harmful because it happened at a shallow depth, and therefore the shock waves are not paved because they are transmitted from the concentration of the earthquake to the surface. The buildings received the full power of shaking.”
“It is important not to focus on volcano compounds because seismic waves are not radiated from the epicenter – they radiate from the full line of error,” he added.
How much is Myanmar’s willingness?
The USGS risk program said on Friday that deaths may range between 10,000 and 100,000 people, and the economic impact may reach 70 % of GDP in Myanmar.
Morson said that such expectations depend on data from previous earthquakes, the size and location of Myanmar and the willingness of the general earthquake.
The relative scarcity of major seismic events in the epic area – which is close to the inhabited Mandalay – means that the infrastructure has not been built to bear. This means that the damage may end up until it is much worse.
Morson said that the last major earthquake hit the area in 1956, and the homes were unlikely to have been built to carry the seismic forces as much as the strongest that struck Friday.
“Most seismic in Myanmar is further to the West, while this is running in the center of the country,” he said.
(Participated in the coverage of David Stanawidation by Francis Kerry)
