Earth Observatory of Singapore

On 25 April 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, destroying buildings and infrastructure across 31 of Nepal’s 70 districts. Approximately 9,000 people lost their lives to the earthquake that day, 22,000 suffered from injuries, and eight million were affected. I arrived in Kathmandu one week after the quake to support the government of Nepal in various response and recovery activities.

Our most recent documentary short film, ‘People of the Forest: Orang Rimba,’ premiered at the Singapore Eco Film Festival in early September 2017. The short offers a brief but intimate look at the lives of the Orang Rimba, a minority group of a few thousand nomadic tribespeople who live throughout the forests of Jambi province in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Home to more than 50 million people, Myanmar is shaped like a giant kite with a long tail that sweeps down along the Andaman Sea.

Beneath the surface, invisible dangers affect Myanmar’s growing population, making it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. In the north, mountain ranges mark the northeast limit of the Indian tectonic plate, which has been colliding with the southern edge of the Eurasian plate for tens of millions of years. It is this interaction that has helped push...

Studies focused on tectonic activity along the Sumatran Fault zone (SFZ), which traverses the entire 1900-km length of Sumatra, are still lacking. The SFZ is segmented and the slip rate varies for each segment, but rates are poorly known, particularly at the southern end of the SFZ.