Reacción a "7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Myanmar"

Myanmar is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, so this quake is not a surprise. It looks to have occurred on the major Sagaing Fault, which marks the boundary between two tectonic plates, and which runs north - south close to a number of large population centres.

This is probably the biggest earthquake on the Myanmar mainland in three quarters of a century, and a combination of size and very shallow depth will maximise the chances of damage. It is highly likely that build quality will generally not be high enough to survive this level of shaking, and casualty numbers will almost certainly climb significantly as more becomes known of the scale of the disaster.

There has already been one sizeable aftershock and more can be expected. This will threaten the collapse of weakened buildings and make the jobs of rescue workers that much more challenging.