The 2012 Shwebo earthquake occurred at 07:42 local time (01:12 UTC) on 11 November in

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 Wells explai ...

. It had a magnitude of 6.8 on the

moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pap ...

and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (''Severe'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the effe ...

. The

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

was near the town of Male, 52 km NNE of the city of

Shwebo Shwebo ( my, ရွှေဘိုမြို့ ) is a city in Sagaing Region, Burma, 110 km north-west of Mandalay between the Irrawaddy and the Mu rivers. The city was the origin of the Konbaung Dynasty, established by King Alaungpaya i ...

, 64 km west of

Mogok Mogok (, ; Shan language, Shan: , ) is a town in the Thabeikkyin District of Mandalay Region of Myanmar, located north of Mandalay and north-east of Shwebo, Sagaing, Shwebo. History Mogok is believed to have been founded in 1217 by three los ...

and 120 km north of

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

. Significant damage and possible casualties have been reported from near the epicenter, with up to 26 people dead and many more injured. Part of a bridge under construction fell into the

Irrawaddy River The Irrawaddy River ( Ayeyarwady River; , , from Indo-Aryan languages, Indic ''revatī'', meaning "abounding in riches") is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar (Burma). It is the country's largest river and most important comm ...

near Shwebo and a gold mine collapsed at Sintku. An aftershock with a magnitude of 5.8 followed at 17:24 local time (10:54 UTC).

Tectonic setting

Central Burma lies within the complex zone of

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...

between the

Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...

and the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

. In this area the collision is highly oblique and much of the plate convergence is accommodated by right lateral strike slip faults, of which the largest is the north-south trending

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 th ...

, which takes up 18 mm per year of this movement.

Earthquake

The earthquake was caused by right lateral movement on the Sagaing Fault between

Singu Singu is a town in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar. It is the capital of Singu Township. Geography Singu is located by the Irrawaddy about 55 km to the south of Letha Taung Letha Taung, also known as the Singu Plateau, is a small volcani ...

and

Tagaung Tagaung is a town in Mandalay Region of Myanmar (Burma). It is situated on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River, 127 miles north of Mandalay. Etymology "Tagaung" derives from the Shan language term "Takawng" ( shn, တႃႈၵွင်; ), whic ...

, with a preliminary estimated rupture length of 60–70 km, and was followed by three large (M≥5)

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousand ...

s in the area south of the mainshock epicenter, and one to the north. A detailed and thorough evaluation of the event suggest the rupture was estimated at 45-km-long and on the Sagaing Fault zone. Centroid moment tensor solution suggested the earthquake ruptured a north-south trending and sub-vertical fault that steeply dipped to the east. Surface ruptures associated with the earthquake was well defined for 45 km. The earthquake had produced a maximum slip of 1.02 meters at a location north of

Thabeikkyin Thabeikkyin is a town in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar. It is alleged by the Democratic Voice of Burma that a secret nuclear facility is located there See also *Thabeikkyin District Thabeikkyin District ( my, သပိတ်ကျင်� ...

Damage

Many buildings, including monasteries, pagodas, a hospital, and a school collapsed in Male and neighbouring villages. Damage was also reported from Shwebo, Mogok and Mandalay. The Radana Thinga Bridge, which was still under construction, fell into the Irrawaddy River, and several workers went missing.

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Myanmar Shwebo earthquake Earthquakes in Myanmar 2012 in Myanmar November 2012 events in Asia