A Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Strikes Central Myanmar

On 28 March 2025, a violent earthquake struck central Myanmar near the border between the Sagaing and Mandalay regions. Centered roughly sixteen kilometres west of Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, the mainshock registered a moment magnitude between 7.7 and 7.9. Geological agencies determined the rupture occurred as a shallow strike-slip event along the Sagaing Fault at an approximate depth of ten kilometres. The shaking reached a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of X, categorised as extreme, and ranked as the strongest earthquake with an epicenter in Myanmar since the 1912 Maymyo event.

The geological rupture proved extraordinary in its physical dimensions. Analysis by the United States Geological Survey and international research institutes indicated that the fault slipped along a tract roughly 450 to 500 kilometres in length, running from north of Mandalay south into the Bago Region. This expanse made it one of the longest strike-slip surface ruptures observed in modern seismology, surpassing recent large fractures such as the 2023 Turkey-Syria event. The slip broke through a stretch of the fault that had been seismically quiet since 1839 or earlier, while also overlapping sections that had ruptured in twentieth-century earthquakes, including those of 1930 and 1956.