The strong earthquake in Central Myanmar at the end of March created one of the largest surface cracks that ever recorded globally.
Myanmar leaders checked the cracked road in Naypyitaw after the earthquake on March 28. Image: AP
The 7.7 -degree earthquake occurred near Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 28, causing serious damage across the country and surrounding areas, including Thailand. More than 5,000 people were confirmed to have been killed. At the annual conference of the American seismic association on April 14-18, researchers from many parts of the world shared preliminary findings about broken, vibrated and impacted infrastructure of this earthquake.
Myanmar is located in an area with strong tectonic activities, where the sealsAND AURIC – A collision. The March earthquake cracked more than 400 km of the Sagaing fault – a huge horizontal broken line longer than 1,200 km running through Central Myanmar – according to the Susan Hough seismicist from the US Geological Survey (USGS).
This is one of the largest surface cracks ever recorded globally, according to researcher Nadine Reitman from USGS. Sagaing fault has created several earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or more in the past century. However, this section of the fault line has not experienced any earthquake with a magnitude of over 7 since 1839.
“The scar” 400 km has grown at a “supershear” level (Supershear) – cracking faster than the sound speed – despite the slow starting, what is often seen in large horizontal sliding pours, according to scientist Zhigang Peng from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Peng noted that earthquake statistics in Thailand and Yunnan and Guangdong provinces of China showed a significant increase in seismic activity after the earthquake. This shows a large -scale impact that the dynamic stress from the main earthquake in Myanmar is caused.
The earthquake caused a strong vibration to spread more than 100 km from the fault in Mandalay, Sagaing, now Pyi Taw, Bago, Shan and other locations, according to Hough. She added that the Meteorological and Hydrology Agency is now Pyi Taw, where the national seismic network of Myanmar, has been heavily influenced by vibration.
The vibration map from the earthquake was analyzed by Chung -Han Chan from the National University of Taiwan, which showed that areas were cut by cracks that could have suffered exceeding 8 by Mercalli – vibration, causing difficulties in standing, causing heavy furniture movement and damaging earthquake -free structures.
The earthquake on March 28 is also a “test” of technology response to natural disasters. Satellite images help researcher Xuechun Li at Johns Hopkins University and colleagues to map with detailed mapping with the city’s scale about the effects of earthquakes in Mandalay in just a few days. This shows that the technology of the research team is very useful in quickly evaluating damage after disaster.
The Myanmar earthquake also marked the first time a large earthquake was discovered by using a sea cable network that had converted into more than 100 seismic sensors, as reported by expert Mikael Mazur from Nokia Bell Labs at the conference.