The 2003 Taungdwingyi earthquake struck central

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

at midnight, on 21 September with a magnitude of 6.6.

Geology

The earthquake occurred due to shallow strike-slip faulting. The source fault is located along the eastern foothills of the Pego Yoma range, and adjacent to the

Sagaing Fault The Sagaing Fault is a major fault in Burma, a mainly continental right-lateral transform fault between the Indian Plate and Sunda Plate. It links the divergent boundary in the Andaman Sea with the zone of active continental collision along the ...

. Its epicenter is centered southeast of the nearby town of

Taungdwingyi Taungdwingyi ( my, တောင်တွင်းကြီး ) is a town located in Magway Region, Myanmar. Town scape The town is divided into ten main quarters. They are Ohndaw Quarter 1, Ohndaw Quarter 2, Taungbyin Quarter 1, Taungbyin Qua ...

, at least 50 km from the Sagaing Fault and 360 km from

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. Shaking was felt in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Numerous aftershocks were recorded in the region. Four of them were greater than M5.0.

Damage and casualties

At least seven people were killed and 43 were injured. Damage was severe, over 180 ritual houses were destroyed, including a primary school that collapsed.

Liquefaction In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics. It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of the ...

sand boil Sand boils or sand volcanoes occur when water under pressure wells up through a bed of sand. The water looks like it is boiling up from the bed of sand, hence the name. Sand volcano A sand volcano or sand blow is a cone of sand formed by the ...

s and

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...

s were also reported. The small death toll is attributed to the fact that this quake occurred around midnight, therefore the collapse of the school did not result in any injuries.

References

{{Earthquakes in Myanmar, state=expanded 2003 disasters in Asia Earthquakes in Myanmar 2003 earthquakes 2003 natural disasters 2003 in Myanmar 2003 disasters in Myanmar

Geology

Damage and casualties

See also

References