Myanmar Earthquake (MBS reporting from Bangkok)

[gummbo70114]

But, you’d poop in your own front yard?

You’ve been peeking

 

[HoustonGold]

GuidoMerkinsRules, How is your vacation going? That pool needs some higher safety rails.

 

[Sailorsaint]

GuidoMerkinsRules, How is your vacation going? That pool needs some higher safety rails.

You can see how much the building was swaying against the backdrop of the other buildings. Wild!

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid05ejrfSHhk1P92EmhEiwuqbyCF5QsjpeTr7C8gcCKRTyUf1NjB1swNC4izkqRRp5nl&id=100064883163929

 

[HoustonGold]

Looks like a hurricane

 

[HoustonGold]

 

[Bayouboy]

Those videos are wild. Cuddos to the engineering that goes into those buildings. Seems like with an earthquake of that magnitude, more skyscrapers could have been destroyed.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Those videos are wild. Cuddos to the engineering that goes into those buildings. Seems like with an earthquake of that magnitude, more skyscrapers could have been destroyed.

It really is impressive that all the buildings (with the exception of the one under construction in Chatuchuk) held in a city that hasn’t had an earthquake in 100 years and that seemingly wouldnt have been prepared for one .. what we are hearing locally is that any high rise building constructed after 2007 was built to withstand earthquakes .. my building is from 2012.. still, many people are reporting large cracks; i discovered a couple of small cracks on my bedroom wall and have been asked to go to the Juristic office tomorrow to show them pictures and file a report for insurance reasons .. but i have been really pleasantly surprised by the robust building quality here.. i hope im not jinxing anything as i get ready to go to bed this Sunday evening and we dont get a big aftershock combined with weakened building structures from the other day .

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

There was some commotion at a couple of buildings i passed on my morning walk today, one was a building under construction at the end of my street, the other was a high rise office building ..i cant seem to upload the video here that i took, but here are a couple of photos..



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ETA the buildings in the background of the second pic are where i live, i am in the shorter of the two buildings, meaning i thankfully had fewer stairs to traverse down the other day, and if any future events warrant another evacuation .

 

[Saintman2884]

As I understand it, the Myanmar/Yangon names were the traditional names before British colonialism, which in British parlance became Burma/Rangoon. So you would think that the decision to change the name back would have been a no brainer within the country, right?

Well, actually no. Aside from human beings just not liking change, (and, again, this is as I understand it from being educated by locals in-country), the name change was the brainchild of the military government and was seen as a rather transparent bullshirt attempt to "unify" the country at the same time they were fighting off/jailing Aung San Suu Kyi and her democratic followers.

So the locals I was familiar with when I was spending a lot of time there (roughly 1993-1997) still used "Burma" and "Rangoon" as a kind of F-you to the government. Not that they were happy with the British colonialism legacy, but rather it was the real-time oppression of the military junta that they were immediately concerned with, not the "university student" optics of a name change.

And, yes, Burmese women are by-and-large gorgeous, and their personalities and friendliness are even more attractive than their physical beauty. If I didn't love my wife as much as I do....

It was the military junta that, by and large, were the ones mostly responsible for driving out British colonial authorities in the late 50's and then later on turned on one another in immediate post-independence confusion and chaos where a cadre of military generals led by charismatic military idealogue, a Col. Muammar Gaddafi type, assumes and consolidates total control of the country. A very similar series of circumstances played out in mid-late 60's with Suharto in Indonesia.

It was a similar pattern in the period of "decolonialization" following WWII with most European empires in Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia with particular focus on FLN in Algeria (nearly lead to De Gaulle's assassination and attempted coup by right-wing elements in French army determined to keep Algeria a French province, the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya (Tom Morello's parents were Mau Mau revolutionaries), the breakup of British power in Cyprus in the early 60's and how inter-communal, long-dormant ethnic tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots eventually lead to a 1974 Turkish intervention that's permanently split the island, more then 50+ years later. The 1967 Aden Emergency and how it ultimatrly lead to a bitterly-divided north and South Yemen: a pro-Soviet, Marxist communist Arab regime in IIRC northern Yemen, and a Saudi-and-Western backed royal/military regime in the south during the 1970's and 80's amidst the Cold War's backdrop until 1990 when socialist, communist Yemeni state collapsed.

 

[Devildog]

That electrical situation looks a little, uh, unfortunate.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

That electrical situation looks a little, uh, unfortunate.

Yeah that’s Asia, I haven’t yet been to any city where the wires dont look like that, even in the most modernized areas .. i dont even notice it anymore .

 

[Devildog]

Yeah that’s Asia, I haven’t yet been to any city where the wires dont look like that, even in the most modernized areas .. i dont even notice it anymore .

I've been all over Southeast Asia when I was in the Marines, but it's been 20 years so I forgot what it looked like. I would've thought they'd fix it a little since then.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

I've been all over Southeast Asia when I was in the Marines, but it's been 20 years so I forgot what it looked like. I would've thought they'd fix it a little since then.

Actually, now that i think about it- I haven’t spent much time in Japan or in Singapore outside of their airports , but they are notorious for their cleanliness and modernity (and super high cost of living)- so maybe they’ve gotten the memo about the electrical wire thing …. I bet @guidomerkinsrules could weigh in if he weren’t on his self-ban .