Qualla: 2025 Myanmar Earthquake

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chainwit., CC BY 4.0. It was Friday prayer time when the ground broke. At 12:50 local time on 28 March 2025, the Sagaing Fault ruptured beneath central Myanmar with a magnitude of 7.7, sending seismic waves through Mandalay, Sagaing, and Naypyidaw in rapid succession. The shaking lasted 85 seconds. In that time, mosques full of worshippers collapsed, a dam burst, bridges fell into rivers, and the Irrawaddy valley -- one of Asia's oldest continuously settled landscapes -- was reshaped by the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar in over a century.

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Image: Chainwit. | CC BY 4.0

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: Eighty-Five Seconds on the Sagaing Fault

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USGS, Public domain. The rupture began near Sagaing Township, just west of Mandalay, and tore in both directions along the Sagaing Fault, a continental transform fault that runs the entire length of Myanmar for over 1,200 kilometers. Seismologists had identified the Meiktila segment -- stretching fro...

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Image: USGS | Public domain

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: Cities Reduced to Rubble

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ninjastrikers, CC BY-SA 4.0. The toll was staggering. In Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, at least 1,870 people died. Buildings at Mandalay University collapsed or caught fire, trapping people inside. Over 600 monks sitting for examinations at U Hla Thein Temple were buried when the structure fell; 8...

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Image: Ninjastrikers | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: A Disaster Within a War

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kofoehtet, CC BY 4.0. The earthquake struck a country already fractured by civil war. Within minutes of the quake, jet fighters on a bombing run against rebel positions dropped ordnance on villages in Nawnghkio Township, adding to the destruction. From 28 March to 5 April, military airstrikes killed a...

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Image: Kofoehtet | CC BY 4.0

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: The Weight of Aftermath

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kofoehtet, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the days following, Mandalay's residents dug through rubble with their bare hands. The city's general hospital overflowed, treating patients outdoors. Fires swept through three wards, reducing Maha Aungthan West entirely to ash. Roads buckled, power failed, and fuel shortages ...

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Image: Kofoehtet | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 Myanmar Earthquake: History Repeating Along the Same Fault

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kofoehtet, CC BY 4.0. The Sagaing Fault had done this before. In 1839, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake ruptured the same Meiktila and Sagaing segments, devastating the royal capital of Inwa so thoroughly that the court relocated to Amarapura. Nearly every brick building was reduced to rubble, the Irrawaddy...

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Image: Kofoehtet | CC BY 4.0