Earthquakes in Thailand?

[jp1]

Of course it?s easier for the Chinese or Indian community in case of a natural disaster. Abroad they always stick together like blood and flesh and help each other without a second thought. Moreover all of them speak the local language and are familiar with local habits. Let?s face it the problem of many Westerners is that they are on a limited posting in any given country and mostly do not try or want to understand the language and the culture of their host country. In addition they often behave superior towards the local population and are indifferent. With such an attitude it?s pretty hard to make friends who will lend you a helping hand in case of need. Selfishness and arrogance don?t pay and this is true not only in Asia but everywhere.

[Guest]

There's no such thing as an earthquake-free area. The bigest earthquake ever in what is now the U.S. occurred in the neighborhood of presrnt-day Missouri! That was back when we were still a colony, though, and there was nothing there except some of those pesky Indians (he says with tongue in cheek). If it were to hit today, St. Louis would be flattened. There was nor Richter scale back then and no instruments, so had to work this out from the geologic record.

 

That said, no big earthquakes for Bangkok, despite that bogus one that many SAID they could feel here a few months ago (I felt nothing). The last one that could be felt was in 1975, before I was here, and it resulted in some minor swaying of buildings.

 

The North gets a lot, centered in China or Burma. Earthquake damage has occurred to Doi Suthep outside of Chiang Mai just in the past few years.

[racha]

So, since we are on natural disasters, does Thailand have Tornados?

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Seen many times mini tornadoes or water spouts in the Andaman sea of Phuket, these are mostly harmless as you can avoid them if your in a boat, I saw a couple of times people evacuating there boats heading for land very quickly when the spout was coming in to the bay or shore area, also witnessed a few double ones that start out as 2 separate ones then join together, very spectacular to see !!

[Crash999]

Says racha:

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Thailand has earthquakes mostly very minor ones, though every now and again the odd one to around 5 or so on the richter scale, so nothing compared to Japan, Thailand has no volcanoes like Japan does, also Thailand is near some fault lines but not right on top of them, Japan from memory is on the edge of those moving plates which does not help either,

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I experienced my first earthquake in Tokyo at 2am one morning. I woke up to my bed rocking back and forth quickly as if someone was trying to wake me up. There was no rumbling like in the movies (not to mention that I was half asleep) so it took me a few seconds to realize what was going on. The only noise was the creaking of the building and furniture, as well as assorted rattling and clinking of things moving around.

 

I leapt up out of bed and opened the door to my hotel room and stood in the doorway, as I thought I remembered one should do. Of course I was the only stupid gaijin on the floor and thus was the only one standing in the doorway of his room during what was really a minor quake.

 

In the 6 months I was living in Japan there was at least one minor quake that I felt or my friends felt (if you're walking on the street you can sometimes miss quakes- unlike if you're in a tall building you can feel even small ones quite well).

 

Check out this cool site which has a visual global map of Earthquakes around the globe. There have been many many small earthquakes around the Andaman Islands and some in Myanmar, but nothing in the past 5 years that looks to have affected Thailand. I found one reference to a quake in Myanmar back in 1995 that had some impact on Northern Thailand.

 

Can't find too much info on Earthquakes in Bangkok, except from a rather nerdly page on the Rama VIII bridge, "Over the past two centuries , approximately 20 earthquake events have been reportedly felt in Bangkok . These have typically been the result of moderate to large semismic event at epicentral dis tances of 200 to 900 km. Althought some have been storng enough to cause panic , there is no record of any singificant damage resulting from these events . As a result , most building and structures in Bangkok have been designed without any consideration of seismic loading . Although there is now some recent work being done on a seismic hazard assessment for Bangkok , no design criteria has yet formalized."

 

So I guess we better hope that there isn't a fluke quake in Bangkok!!!

 

Cheers!

 

 

[Adams167]

There was an earthquake felt in Bangkok in, I think, 1975; I was on the 2nd floor of an office building and felt the moevment even there - my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was on the 5th floor of the Boonmitr Building on Silom Road and the building shook so much that the window blinds behind her desk actually hit her on the head. The main Post Office building on New Road was slightly damaged, as were some other buildings; fortunately perhaps at that time there were no really tall structures in Bangkok - I think the Chokechai Building on Sukhumvit was probably the tallest.