The Myanmar Earthquake

124 friends in this area
66 friends marked as safe

I woke up at 3am.  In checking the time, I saw I had notifications from facebook ... "Earthquake in Myanmar, let your friends know you're ok by marking yourself safe." "So-and-so has marked themselves as safe during the Myanmar Earthquake."

What's going on? Was this felt in Thailand? Friends started marking themselves safe 3 hours ago ... I was asleep. I wonder what's going on, might as well check since I'm awake.

BBC News, "Myanmar shaken by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake" ... no initial reports of fatalities ... tremors felt in India (no worries, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, while in the area, are safe) and Bangladesh. Hmm, sounds like it's closer to the western border than eastern - did it even reach Thailand? I wonder if/how it affected the region Free Burma Rangers works in ... finally! a map - doesn't look like tremors reached Thailand (according to this map) ... reading further: Chinese officials report tremors felt in Tibet and China, but no reports of it reaching Thailand.

No reports of it reaching Thailand and yet Facebook wanted me to let my friends know if I was safe or not.  I'm cranky from waking up at 3am.  I don't want to, but I check myself in as safe.

I find it silly to check in. It doesn't look like it's reached Thailand (and in looking the next day the epicenter was 900+ km north/north west of Chiang Mai).  Friends in Thailand will assume I'm safe since they probably didn't feel anything either.  Friends in America might wonder what I'm doing in Myanmar, or they might not care, or they won't know that it even happened ... they won't know that it happened.  

They should know it happened - Myanmar has had enough problems overlooked by western media the past few years, but maybe I can help raise awareness since I'm in the larger region.
"Many of Myanmar's outlying areas have inadequate communications and infrastructure, including the area where the earthquake hit." Do you realize the implications of this statement?


 "You've marked yourself as safe"