Quakes continue in Asia: two large quakes strike northeast Myanmar

PanARMENIAN.Net - Two strong quakes of magnitude 7.0 struck northeast Myanmar, close to the Thai and Laotian borders, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on March 24.

It said the quakes struck seconds apart at 8:25 p.m. on Thursday (1355 GMT) and were centered 69 miles north of Chiang Rai in neighboring Thailand. The first one was very shallow, at a depth of 6.2 miles, while the second one was deeper at 142.5 miles, Reuters reported.

Myanmar is a country in Southeast Asia. The country is bordered by the People’s Respublic of China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, with the Andaman Sea defining its southern periphery. One-third of the country’s total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline.

On March 11, 2011, at 14:46 JST, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake (according to the Japan Meteorological Agency) struck 81 miles east of the city of Sendai on the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan and set off a tsunami that swept some coastal villages out to sea and caused major damage along the coast. The earthquake also damaged nuclear power plants in the region. Presently, workers battle to staunch radiation leaks, almost two weeks after it was disabled by an earthquake and tsunami, but some experts saw signs of the crisis being brought under control.

This was the fifth most powerful earthquake in the past century and the most powerful on record in Japan. Some Japanese media reports suggest the death toll could soon surpass 25,000. Prime Minister Naoto Kan called this the worst crisis Japan has faced since the end of World War II.