So an earthquake hit Bangkok

Which is where I'm at right now

Where the earthquake hit. Unfortunately, I don’t have the rights to use any actual images of the earthquake.

I think my dislike of earthquakes has been well documented by now. I’m not a fan in case you’re new here! Anything I can’t see coming generally makes me nervous. To a certain extent that’s also why I don’t much care for balloons. They’ll just POP with no warning. They’re very rude… Anyways, so imagine my surprise when, just before 1:00pm on Thursday, as I was quietly sipping on my afternoon smoothie (it’s hot here and SE Asia LOVES smoothies apparently), everything starts shaking.

Now, given that I’m a geography person and someone who is terrified of earthquakes, I’ve spent a good deal of time studying these things. In fact, some of my most viewed videos on YouTube are about earthquakes. I have 2.3 million views on a video about the potential for a Cascadia earthquake, which will conveniently destroy my life whenever it decides to rip.

Where I’m going with this is that I know where earthquakes are likely to hit. As I was traveling through Japan and Taiwan a few weeks ago, I knew there was a not-insignificant chance that I could feel an earthquake. I also knew, though, that if one did hit, I was in an area that was built for it. Japan better than Taiwan, but still pretty solid.

As I left Taiwan and flew to Vietnam, then Cambodia and now Thailand, I likewise knew I was entering into an area with little to no chance of an earthquake. I let my guard down, so to say. This is in an area of the world that is seismically boring! So, going back to my smoothie at just before 1:00pm on Thursday, as the world began to shake around me and people began to panic, I just sat there. “No way this was an earthquake” I thought to myself. “It’s just not possible” I figured. But it was, indeed, an earthquake.

To be clear though, I wasn’t wrong in my original assumption about Thailand's overall seismicity. The earthquake that I felt yesterday, and caused considerable damage in Bangkok, was actually from the dead center of Myanmar, near the country’s second largest city of Mandalay. If you’re not caught up on your SE Asia geography, that’s about 1,000 kilometers, door-to-door. To put it bluntly: that’s really far for an earthquake to travel. And there’s one reason why this earthquake traveled so far with such a big impact: its depth.

The depth of an earthquake refers to how far below the Earth’s surface the shaking actually starts. Shallow earthquakes, which occur less than 70 kilometers deep, are typically the most dangerous. That’s because their energy doesn’t have to travel far to reach the surface. This means that the actual shaking is more intense, buildings are more likely to collapse, and the impact is often widespread. The 2010 Haiti earthquake, for example, was relatively shallow and devastating, despite not being the strongest quake on record.

Deeper earthquakes, on the other hand, can release a lot of energy, but much of that energy gets absorbed or dissipates before it reaches the surface. Sometimes, deep quakes can even pass unnoticed on the ground, especially if they occur in remote or unpopulated regions.

The 2025 Myanmar earthquake, as its likely to be known from here on out, hit at a depth of just 10km. That’s VERY shallow which means all that shaking just kind of rippled through the earth making it all the way to Bangkok one-whole-thousand kilometers away.

Thankfully, Bangkok is relatively okay. I had to sit in about 3 hours of traffic yesterday. There’s been some damage here and a building that was under construction toppled completely. Unfortunately, we lost some lives because of that. Bangkok doesn’t get earthquakes, and therefore it’s not built for them. So even light earthquakes can cause significant disruption and damage.

Myanmar and Mandalay, on the other hand, is in a MUCH worse situation. Myanmar was already the poorest country in SE Asia by a country mile. Because of the civil war that the country is enduring, there’s little information coming out about the situation there right now. I guess all I can say about Myanmar is that I hope the people there are able to endure one more test of character and, hopefully, they’ll come out on the other side stronger for it.

While I’m technically in Bangkok as I write this, if you’re following my global travel videos, this week I’m in Hanoi. Which you can check out over on my travel Substack!

Oddly enough, this earthquake hit while Alexa and I were filming another episode all about Thailand so, in a few weeks, this whole event will likely be featured in some capacity. We’ll see how that goes! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯