Seismic cycle progression in major cities of Myanmar using earthquake nowcasting
Authors :- Devi, S., Pasari, S. & Mehta, A.
Publication :- Journal of Seismology, Springer, 2025.
Situated at the seismically active junction of the Indian and Eurasian plates, Myanmar faces a persistent threat from large–magnitude earthquakes. The recent March 28, 2025 Mandalay earthquake ( ) in central Myanmar has reignited the scientific challenges in earthquake hazard estimation. This earthquake, in fact, has divided Myanmar into two broader regions—one significantly impacted by the Mandalay earthquake and another with less devastation. Given the continued seismic activity in Myanmar, estimating the “current level” of earthquake hazards for both types of regions is crucial. In this regard, the present study applies an area-based “earthquake nowcasting” technique to evaluate the contemporary seismic cycle progression in 15 major cities across the entire country. The method utilizes the concept of natural time, the inter–event counts of small earthquakes between consecutive large sized events, to compute the Earthquake Potential Score (EPS) for the target city-regions. To accomplish, we examine several probability distributions and found that the natural-time seismicity statistics follow the exponentiated exponential distribution. As of June 16, 2025, the nowcast scores for events in Myanmar range from 31% to 96%, with the highest scores observed in Pathein (96%), followed by Bago (93%), Yangon (92%), Myitkyina (70%), Mandalay (42%), Sagaing (42%), Monywa (42%), Taunggyi (41%), Magway (41%), Sittwe (40%), Naypyidaw (36%), Lashio (34%), Hakha (32%), Loikaw (32%), and Mawlaik (31%). Higher EPS values generally correspond to cities farther from the epicentral location of the 2025 Mandalay earthquake, while lower EPS values are observed for the cities in central Myanmar, such as Mandalay, Loikaw, Lashio, and Naypyidaw. These nowcast scores indirectly quantify the present state of earthquake hazards in Myanmar and serve as a critical input for several practical uses.