A violent earthquake of magnitude 7.7 hit the Myanmar central (the former Burma) on Friday 28 March 2025 at 7:20 Italian causing beyond 2000 official victims. The epicenter is located at about 30 km West of Mandalay, Second more populous city in the country. The depth was just 10 kmtherefore very superficial, and this is one of the main reasons why it has caused so much damage and victims. The earthquake was very violent: so to speak, 44,700 times more intense than the M4.6 shock at the Flegrei fields of 13 March. But how is it possible to have fallen a skyscraper a More than 1000 km away? And such an earthquake can also take place in Italy?
The geological context of Myanmar
There Myanmar geology it is extremely complex From a structural point of view but the key concept is not difficult to grasp. We are in an area where four busty entities interact:
- the Indian plaque;
- the Euroasian plaque;
- the Sunda plaque;
- and the Microplacca of Burma.
In this area of the world, the land follow this direction, N/s with a little curvature, almost as if it were a sort of brush stroke. All this was created by India! Indeed, in fact, starting from about 50-60 million years ago, taking “the run -up” began to crash against Eurasia. Plaque against plate, boom, the largest mountain range of planet Earth has been created: Himalaya.
So on the front edge of the Indian plaque it came to create the Himalayas while on the right edge, in contact with the probe plate, mountain chains originated. In this case it was not a head -on but lateral clash, a sort of “string”.
The sagaing fault
The protagonist of the earthquake is the Sagaing faulta passed off fault that crosses the country from north to south for over 1,200 kilometers and the earthquake in question activated a stretch of fault about about 200 km. In reality it is not a simple spending but a transforming fault; transformation is nothing more than a passing but between two busty plaques, in this case the Indian and the probe one.
This fault or rather, fault system, has been active for millions of years and crosses densely populated areas, including Yangon, Naypyidaw and in fact Mandalay. The faults that have tended to generate less violent earthquakes than the reverse faults, but in any case they can get to have important magnitude, as in this case.
Historical earthquakes in Myanmar
Made these premises, it should not be surprised that the area is historically seismic. Among the main earthquakes of the past we have for example:
- 1930, Bago: magnitude 7.3;
- 1946, Sagaing: magnitude 7.5;
- 1956, Bago: magnitude 7.1;
- 2012, Mandalay: magnitude 6.8.
And these, be careful, are all events related to sagaing fault, often with large damage and losses of human lives.
The earthquake in Bangkok
Having made these premises, now we can also understand why the earthquake in Myanmar has caused damage to Bangkok, which is located to More than 1000 km away. In fact, as we said not only was he felt in a very intense way but even a skyscraper under construction collapsed, causing dozens of missing and victims. It is an event that if we think about it is incredible. Resuming the words of Claudio Doglioni, ex-president ingv, “It is as if there was an earthquake in Palermo and the buildings in Munich came down“.
So how is it possible? It is difficult to explain and to date we have no certain answers but a possible hypothesis could be that of one amplification local. What does it mean? Some land, such as clayey ones for example, work a bit as a rail of the resonance of seismic waves. And Bangkok actually stands on a flood basin with loose sediments. This could have amplified the seismic waves that came from afar, causing on the surface oscillations that are powerful enough to drop that structure, which was in the finalization phase.
In any case, it is strange that a building under construction falls … but on this we have no information for the moment.
Could a similar earthquake also happen in Italy?
Technically the answer is yes, but it is extremely unlikely. In Italy There are no faults so extensive and with energy accumulation rates comparable to those of the Sagaing fault. Our busty structures, such as those along the Apennine ridge or in the Calabrian area, are more short and slow. As a result, the strongest earthquakes we can expect are around magnitude 7.0-7.1as happened in 1908 in Messina-Reggio or in 1693 in Eastern Sicily.
So: yes, Italy is a seismic country, and strong earthquakes are part of our history. But extreme events like that of Myanmar are rare in our geological context. This does not mean that even an earthquake of magnitude 6.5, if it affects a densely inhabited and not very prepared area, can have devastating consequences.
