Myanmar earthquakes and vulnerable Northeast India
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: April 02, 2025 -

THE devastation caused to Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand by the series of earthquakes on March 28, including two measuring above magnitude 7 on the Richter scale, has rung out the message that natural disasters could strike anytime, anywhere, in any part of the world.

With no less than 2000 people getting killed in Myanmar and hundreds remaining untraceable, the only prediction one could make at the juncture is that more corpses would be retrieved from the disaster sites.

The Myanmar earthquakes, including the one that reached 7.7 on the Richter scales, rocked neighbouring Thailand and with tremors and aftershocks rattling parts of China, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, demonstrate the power natural disasters wield.

In Myanmar and Thailand, where high-rise existing as well as under-construction buildings collapsed like house of cards or got tilted and roads developed huge cracks, killing scores and trapping many others under the rubble, authorities have respectively declared disaster and state of emergency in multiple regions, and urged the global communities to provide help and donations, in order to prevent more post-quake casualties.

The scale of devastation in Myanmar could be gauged from reports about cracked roads, collapsed bridge, and a dam burst, leading to flooding in low-lying areas, and serious damage caused to some sections of the highway connecting Mandalay and Myanmar's largest city, Yangon.

Though impact of the latest earthquakes has had no devastating impact in the state or in the northeast region even if most of the states felt the tremors, the fear and anxiety among the people was profound.

The standing order of the state that restricts the height of a building or number of storeys might be one of the factors for the state withstanding natural disasters like earthquakes till date but possibility of a stronger temblor wreaking havoc cannot be ruled out in case government authorities do not strictly enforce the law which prohibits construction of high-rise buildings and carry out periodical inspection of condition of buildings constructed years before enactment of the legislation aimed at preventing human casualties in case of unprecedented natural disasters.

With the existence healthcare infrastructure and service still in the developmental stage, it is likely that Manipur, which also lies on one of the tectonic plates, along with the other north eastern states would suffer huge loss of lives and properties if earthquakes of greater magnitude occur.

As such, even if occurrences of earthquakes cannot be pre-determined, the disaster management institutions under the government shall have to maintain constant vigil to ensure that no substantial damages are caused to life and properties, as devastation wrought by natural disasters in an economically under-developed state like ours would be hard to recover.

To minimise damage from natural disasters like earthquakes so as to ensure a sustainable future, it is imperative that the general population should be made aware about basic safety measures, prepared to deal with the threats, and encouraged to invest in resilient infrastructure that can withstand risks to some extent, to name a few.

In case the masses are made familiar with such safety measures, then it might also help in addressing the risks associated with drastic climate change events.