Latest news with #MyanmarEarthquake
NHK
7 days ago
- Business
- NHK
Many Myanmar technical trainees unable to come to Japan after March quake
Two months have passed since a devastating earthquake hit central Myanmar. Japan's Immigration Services Agency says many people hoping to come to the country to work, such as foreign technical trainees, are unable to do so because they cannot get official documentation. The agency says issuance by Myanmar's labor ministry of Overseas Worker Identification Cards needed for employment abroad has been delayed, partly due to the quake. Morikubo Natsuki, a certified administrative procedures legal specialist based in Tokyo, offers support for foreign technical interns. He says because of Myanmar's continuing civil war, many trainees are trying to get jobs in Japan, which is considered a safe country. He says interns from Myanmar have high Japanese language skills and that many are accepted in the nursing industry in Japan, which is struggling with a worker shortage. But Morikubo says an increasing number of staffing agencies in Myanmar and Japanese businesses are asking for advice amid the delay in issuing the cards. He says some companies have withdrawn their job offers. Morikubo says Japanese firms that take in Myanmar trainees should consider that it will take time for the workers to arrive in Japan. He says: "I hope companies will not immediately withdraw their job offers for Myanmar trainees. Firms should wait and closely watch the situation in Myanmar, while finding parallel solutions during that difficult time such as recruiting workers from other countries."
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Scientists are GOBSMACKED by never-before-seen footage of the Earth rupturing during an earthquake
Terrifying footage has emerged from March's Myanmar earthquake showing the ground literally sliding either side of two tectonic plates. The astonishing video clip, originally uploaded to Facebook, was captured by a surveillance camera just south of Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. Initially, the clip – captured at 12:46pm local time on March 28 – looks like unremarkable security footage from a private property. But about 10 seconds in, the point-of-view begins to shake up and down, plants flap wildly and the gate starts sliding back and forth. Then, at about 14 seconds, the entire driveway starts to move forward relative to the ground beyond, like some kind of horrible fairground ride. Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist and science communicator in California, said her 'jaw hit the floor' when she saw the footage from along the fault line. 'We have computer models of it, we have laboratory models of it, but all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system,' she told CBS News. 'So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing.' An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California Dornsife, said he knows of no other video showing a so-called 'ground rupture'. 'It's really kind of unsettling,' Professor Vidale told Live Science. The footage was captured by a security camera at GP Energy Myanmar's Tha Pyay Wa solar energy facility, just south of Mandalay. An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page. Although easily missed, the 'surface rupture' event is best viewed by keeping a close eye beyond the gate to the right of the picture. Dividing the driveway and the road beyond is the fault line – the boundary where two tectonic plates meet. When the 7.7-magnitude quake hit, the ground moved as much as 20 feet (6 metres), according to 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive. This is the first and currently only known instance of a fault line motion being captured on camera, the page says. What happened during the Myanmar earthquake? Myanmar sits on the boundary between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. Right in the heart of the country, these plates move past each other in a zone called the Sagaing Fault. Researchers have warned that part of the Sagaing Fault had been 'stuck', building up a huge reserve of energy. On March 28, that energy was released in a massive earthquake near Myanmar's population centres. The earthquake was also exceptionally shallow, meaning more energy was transferred into buildings at the surface. The video was posted to YouTube on May 11, where it received 12,000 likes and more than 1,000 comments from astonished users. One person said: 'This video is going to be a staple in geology classrooms, while another called it 'truly a groundbreaking video'. A third said: '[It's] terrifying to see the entire landscape shift, very visceral expression of the energy involved', while a fourth said: 'If you're watching this for the first time and only notice the driveway, rewatch it several times looking at different areas.' Another posted: 'There's so many amazing tiny details in this video, that 30 watches in, I'm still finding new things.' Earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates that are sliding in opposite directions stick and then slip suddenly. Myanmar sits directly on top of the Sagaing Fault – a highly active earthquake zone stretching 745 miles (1,200 km) through the heart of the country. In this region, the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates slide past each other at a speed of 1.9-inch (49mm) per year. When those plates catch and stick, they build up a vast reserve of energy which is then released in a violent 'slip-strike' earthquake, as has happened on March 28. The earthquake originated from a fault that runs the length of the country between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. It originated from a region called the Sagaing Fault, near Mandalay In January, geologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that the middle section of the Sagaing fault had been highly 'locked' – meaning the plates had been stuck for an abnormally long time. This indicated that more energy was building up than normal and the researchers warned that the Sagaing fault would be 'prone to generating large earthquakes in the future'. The March 28 earthquake killed more than 5,300 people in Myanmar, as well as more than 100 in neighbouring Thailand and one person in Vietnam. It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar since 1912 and the second deadliest in Myanmar's modern history. The Earth is moving under our feet: Tectonic plates move through the mantle and produce Earthquakes as they scrape against each other Tectonic plates are composed of Earth's crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle. Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride. Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other. Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate.
Al Arabiya
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Rubio says US can no longer supply bulk of global humanitarian aid
The United States will no longer bear the burden of providing the majority of global humanitarian aid, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday, calling on other wealthy nations to step up after an earthquake devastated parts of Myanmar. 'We're not the government of the world. We'll provide humanitarian assistance, just like everybody else does, and we we'll do it the best we can,' Rubio told reporters in Brussels. 'But we also have other needs we have to balance that against.' President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all US foreign aid on his first day in office. That action, and ensuing stop-work orders halting many programs of the US Agency for International Development worldwide, have jeopardized the delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, throwing into chaos global humanitarian relief efforts. USAID itself has been largely dismantled as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk press ahead with an unprecedented push to shrink the federal government, with much of the agency's staff put on leave or let go and many of its grants terminated. The top US diplomat said it wasn't fair to expect that the United States would shoulder 60-70 percent of humanitarian aid around the world and that there were a lot of 'rich countries' in the world that should pitch in. He specifically cited China and India. 'We are the richest country in the world, but our resources are not unlimited. They are not unlimited, and we have a massive national debt. We have many other priorities as well and it's time to recalibrate all of that. So we'll be there. We'll be helpful as much as we can. We've got other things we have to take care of as well,' he said. 'China is a very rich country. India is a rich country. There are a lot of other countries in the world, and everyone should pitch in.' Last Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake, one of Myanmar's strongest in a century, jolted a region home to 28 million, toppling buildings such as hospitals, flattening communities and leaving many without food, water and shelter. The death toll from the quake has climbed to 3,145, with more than 4,500 injured and more than 200 still missing, the country's military junta said. Myanmar not the easiest place The United States, which was until recently the world's top humanitarian donor, has offered a relatively modest $2 million in response to the earthquake. Washington also said it would send a three-member assessment team, though their arrival has been delayed by problems obtaining visas from the military regime. In past years, the US has regularly deployed skilled rescue workers quickly to save lives in response to tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters around the world. Rubio rejected the criticism that Washington was slow to respond to the earthquake because USAID was dismantled. Instead, he said Myanmar was not 'the easiest place to work,' saying the ruling military junta does not like the United States and prevents it from operating in the country the way it wants to. The United Nations human rights office said on Friday that Myanmar's military is limiting critically needed humanitarian aid for earthquake victims in areas where it sees opposition to its rule. The American absence shows how Trump's moves to slash the size of the US government have hobbled its ability to act during disasters, three current and former US officials told Reuters.
Al Jazeera
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Photos: Myanmar earthquake death toll climbs as hope fades for survivors
Rescuers pulled a man alive from the rubble five days after Myanmar's devastating earthquake, as calls grew for the military government to allow more aid in and halt attacks on rebels. The shallow magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Friday flattened buildings across Myanmar, killing at least 2,886 people and leaving thousands homeless. Several leading armed groups fighting the military have suspended hostilities during the quake recovery, but the military government chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, promised to continue 'defensive activities' against 'terrorists'. United Nations agencies, rights groups and foreign governments have urged all sides in Myanmar's civil war to stop fighting and focus on helping those affected by the earthquake, the biggest to hit the country in decades. Hopes of finding more survivors are fading, but there was a moment of joy on Wednesday as a man was pulled alive from the ruins of a hotel in the capital, Naypyidaw.
