Myanmar quake jolts Bangladesh

A powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar and its shockwave jolted different parts, including the capital in Bangladesh, on Wednesday afternoon.
The tremor shook central Myanmar killing at least one person and damaging around 60 pagodas in the ancient city of Bagan, Agence France-Presse reported from Yangon.
The quake, which the US Geological Survey said hit at a depth of 84 kilometres (52 miles), was also felt across neighbouring Thailand, India and Bangladesh, sending panicked people rushing onto the streets and open spaces from home and workplaces.
Omar Faruk, a meteorologist at Dhaka Met office, said the earthquake with its epicenter in Myanmar was felt around 4:37pm in the capital.
The quake was also felt throughout south and southwestern Bangladesh close to the border with Myanmar, with residents running out from their homes.
Several people were injured as workers tried to flee a building in the Savar industrial district outside Dhaka, ATN Bangla television reported.
‘All of us ran to the streets leaving the houses and shops unsecure as the quake appeared very dangerous,’ Nazmus Sakib, from the southern city of Chittagong near the Myanmar border, wrote on his Facebook wall.
Our correspondents in bordering districts of Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban, Khagrachari, Rangamati and other districts, including Chittagong, said there was no casualty although many panicked people rushed to open spaces.
In Myanmar, a 22 year-old man was killed when a nearby building collapsed during the earthquake, AFP reported, adding that a woman was also injured.
A local official reported heavy damage to several temples in Bagan — Myanmar’s most famous archaeological site and a major tourist destination some 30 kilometres north of the quake’s epicentre.
‘About 60 pagodas in Bagan were damaged. Some were seriously damaged, said Aung Kyaw, the director of Bagan’s culture department.
A tourist police officer from Bagan confirmed the damage and said a Spanish tourist was slightly hurt when the quake knocked her from the temple where she was watching the sunset.
Scaling Bagan’s ancient Buddhist monuments to watch the sun set over the city’s 2,500 temples is a daily ritual among tourists and local pilgrims who flock to the site.
The temples, built between the 10th and 14th centuries, are revered in the Buddhist-majority country.
Myanmar, which has opened its doors to a rising tide of visitors since emerging from junta rule in 2011, is eager to see the ancient capital designated as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Soe Win, a local MP from Chauk — a riverside town close to the epicentre — said it was the worst earthquake he had experienced in years.
More than eight pagodas in town collapsed, he told AFP, referring to Chauk.
The earthquake caused high-rise buildings in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon to sway, as well as those in the Thai capital Bangkok and the Indian city of Kolkata.
Services of the underground railway were suspended fearing aftershocks of the quake, Kolkata Metro Railway spokesman Indrani Banerjee told AFP.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net