The powerful M7.7 earthquake that occurred in Myanmar on 28 March 2025 was not unexpected by scientists. But questions were raised as to why such an event could generate so much damage across several countries, including Thailand. Maps from the Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS) provide insights into where the damage might be in the region.

The M7.7 earthquake occurred along the Sagaing fault, which is a major plate boundary between the Indian and Sunda plates. The fault extends over 1200 kilometres (km), traverses Myanmar, and is located close to major cities such as Mandalay. Based on past research by EOS, the fault accumulates seismic energy at a rate of around 20 mm/yr in regions where it is stuck, due to the continuous movement of the tectonic plates on each side. The M7.7 earthquake resulted from the sudden release of this accumulated energy on the portion of the fault near Mandalay that had been stuck for a long time. The event was shallow, with an epicentre at a depth of about 10 km, and it generated strong shaking that damaged buildings and critical infrastructure. 

“Our damage Proxy Maps (DPMs), derived from satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, show a striking level of damage in Mandalay and other cities near the fault rupture. Even a week after the deadly earthquake, very little information about the extent and level of damage is available. I hope this map will help fill that gap and provide valuable insights for decision-making efforts and field operations, especially in remote areas where communication is likely compromised and road access remains uncertain,” said Associate Professor Sang-Ho Yun, the Director of EOS-RS and a faculty member of the Asian School of the Environment (ASE) and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. “By overlaying our DPMs on building footprints or population density maps, we can rapidly estimate the number of damaged buildings or the number of affected people, respectively,” he added.

The team released today a comprehensive DPM covering approximately 158,000 square kilometres, including Mandalay and many other cities and small towns in Myanmar near the fault rupture that caused the M7.7 earthquake on 28 March 2025. The map was derived from SAR data acquired on 3 April 6:09 PM local time from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).   

EOS-RS created this preliminary Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas that are likely damaged in Myanmar due to the Mw7.7 earthquake on 28 Mar 2025 and its aftershocks until 3 Apr 2025. This map was derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) before (11 Sep 2024 to 22 Mar 2025) and after (3 Apr 2025) the event. The map covers an area indicated by the white polygon. Damage is shown by colored pixels of 30m in size, where yellow to red indicates increasingly significant ground surface change before and after the event. Preliminary validation was conducted using news reports and ground-level imagery and videos in selected areas. This map should be used as a guidance to identify damaged areas and may be less reliable over vegetated or mountainous areas. Scattered pixels over vegetated or mountainous areas may be false positives, and a lack of colored pixels over such areas may not mean no damage. (Source: Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS), Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024-2025)) 

Previous maps released by EOS-RS show that several areas near Naypyidaw, such as Pyinmana, Swar, Yedashe and Taungoo, also have various degrees of ground surface change. 



EOS-RS created this preliminary Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas that are likely damaged in the vicinity of Naypyidaw, Myanmar, due to the 28 March Mw7.7 earthquake and its aftershocks in Myanmar. This map was derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) before (01 Dec 2024 to 19 Mar 2025) and after (31 Mar 2025) the event. The map covers an area indicated by the white polygon. Damage is shown by colored pixels of 30m in size, where yellow to red indicates increasingly significant ground surface change before and after the event. Preliminary validation was conducted using news reports, ground-level and satellite aerial imagery in selected areas. This map should be used as a guidance to identify damaged areas, and may be less reliable over vegetated or mountainous areas. Scattered pixels over vegetated or mountainous areas may be false positives, and a lack of colored pixels over such areas may not mean no damage. (Source: Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS), Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024-2025)) 


Scientists can never say exactly when an earthquake will occur, but they expected an event of this magnitude and around this location in the coming decades. The Sagaing fault generated earthquakes of similar magnitudes in the past, such as the M7.7 earthquake that happened in 1946 on the fault north of Mandalay. Associate Professor Shengji Wei, a Principal Investigator at EOS and faculty of ASE, highlighted in a CNN interview that the powerful earthquake was “not an unexpected event.” He added, in another interview with News18, that the region had been quiet for about 200 years, and that investigations indicated that this segment of the fault was likely to experience a significant earthquake soon. “The M7.7 earthquake happened in a portion of the Sagaing fault that had been identified as a seismic gap,” said Assistant Professor Lujia Feng, a Principal Investigator at EOS and a Faculty at ASE.

The event was also felt in neighbouring countries such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand, where damage was also reported. In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, Assoc Prof Wei reminds that Bangkok, which is about 1000 km away from the epicentre, sits in a sedimentary basin for example, which is known to amplify seismic waves. It is also not unusual for earthquakes with such magnitudes and depths to be felt hundreds of kilometres away. For example, the M7.4 earthquake that hit Taiwan on 3 April 2024 was felt in Mainland China as far as 700 km away. The M7.7 Myanmar earthquake is therefore another reminder that earthquakes are a transboundary hazard. 



EOS-RS created this preliminary Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas that are likely damaged in Bangkok, Thailand, due to a Mw7.7 earthquake in Sagaing, Myanmar on 28 Mar 2025. This map was derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) before (17 Nov 2024 to 17 Mar 2025) and after (29 Mar 2025) the event. The map covers an area indicated by the white polygon. Damage is shown by colored pixels of 30m in size, where yellow to red indicates increasingly significant ground surface change before and after the event. Preliminary validation was conducted using news reports and ground-level imagery and videos in selected areas. This map should be used as a guidance to identify damaged areas and may be less reliable over vegetated or mountainous areas. Scattered pixels over vegetated or mountainous areas may be false positives, and a lack of colored pixels over such areas may not mean no damage. (Source: Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS), Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024-2025)) 



EOS-RS created this preliminary Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas that are likely damaged in Chiang Mai, Thailand, due to a Mw7.7 earthquake in Sagaing, Myanmar on 28 Mar 2025. This map was derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) before (17 Nov 2024 to 17 Mar 2025) and after (29 Mar 2025) the event. The map covers an area indicated by the white polygon. Damage is shown by colored pixels of 30m in size, where yellow to red indicates increasingly significant ground surface change before and after the event. Preliminary validation was conducted using news reports and ground-level imagery in selected areas. This map should be used as a guidance to identify damaged areas, and may be less reliable over vegetated or mountainous areas. Scattered pixels over vegetated or mountainous areas may be false positives, and a lack of colored pixels over such areas may not mean no damage. (Source: Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS), Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024-2025)) 


Other maps generated by EOS-RS clearly show the ruptured patch of the Sagaing fault and highlight extensive ground deformation in the areas surrounding the fault. “The colourful fringes in our ground deformation maps are like contour lines of ground motion in the radar line-of-sight direction,” said Assoc Prof Yun. “A dense fringe pattern represents steep change in ground motion.”  



EOS-RS created this Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) map that shows the surface displacement (wrapped interferogram) of the Mw7.7 earthquake and its aftershocks along the Sagaing Fault in Myanmar on 28 Mar 2025. This map was derived from SAR images acquired by the ALOS-2 satellite operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) before (16 Feb 2025) and after (30 Mar 2025) the event. Each color cycle represents 11.2 cm of ground displacement in the radar line-of-sight. Ionospheric delay variation was mitigated, but tropospheric delay variation was not. (Source: Earth Observatory of Singapore - Remote Sensing Lab (EOS-RS), Original data ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 Product - JAXA (2025))