VIDEO: In a first, scary moment ground tore up in Myanmar captured on camera

Myanmar was devastated by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on March 28 this year. A video showing the ground cracking up has now emerged. This is believed to be the first time a fault rupture in motion has been caught on camera. The massive quake was felt as far as Thailand, and nearly 5,500 people were killed.

The video posted on YouTube by 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive shows the rupture as the Earth's crust is ripped off all the way up to the surface. The Myanmar earthquake caused a rupture in about 460 kilometres of the Sagaing fault line that runs through the entire country. The description of the video states that the tremors moved the fault line side-to-side by as much as 20 feet in some places. This movement of the Sagaing fault line was captured by a CCTV camera.

Watch the video of the ground rupture in Myanmar earthquake

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Singaporean engineer Htin Aung shared the video on his Facebook page, stating that the rupture was caught on camera at GP Energy Myanmar's Thapyawa solar farm, located near the town of Thazi.

Gate opens, electricity tower falls, ground breaks apart

The terrifying video shows a concrete-and-metal gate that starts shaking and opens as the tremors hit.

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Soon, a wide crack can be seen opening up across the driveway and the yard outside the gate. The ground breaks apart into two with a wide crack at the centre. The area on the right side of the scene slides forward by several feet, and the movement can actually be seen on camera.

Far away, the camera also captures an electricity grid topple over and plants sliding towards the other end.

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The Sagaing Fault is a major fault line where the Indian plate and the Sunda plate meet. At this point, the plates can move towards each other, away or slip past each other. The video proves that a side-to-side movement of a strike-slip fault is possible.

San Andreas Fault in California

A similar fate awaits the San Andreas Fault in California, which is also a strike-slip fault. Experts say the fault has become so smooth that the next earthquake will be of magnitude 7 or 8. Seismologist Lucy Jones wrote in her book The Big Ones, "Someday, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a decade, probably in the lifetimes of many people reading this book, some point on the fault will lose its frictional grip and start to move. Once it does, the weak fault, with all that stored energy, will have no way of holding it back."

California is predicted to be faced with the Big One, a massive earthquake that might cause huge devastation.