It's Monday, March 31, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and

events from a Christian worldview. A massive earthquake hit the nation of Myanmar on Friday,

and the death tolls already reaching about 1700. it is almost assuredly going to grow far larger.

And that's because this is an extremely powerful earthquake, 7.7 on the magnitude scale.

Now, recall, we used to talk about the Richter scale, which dates back to the middle of the 20th century.

More accurate measurements have led to an updated scale, so we don't

put a name on it anymore. It's simply 7.7 in magnitude. Remember that every number represents

the power of 10. And so an earthquake that is a 6 as compared to a 5 is 10 times more powerful

than the 5. So a 7 is 10 times more powerful than the five. So a seven is 10 times more powerful than a six.

That's a massive increase in magnitude and scale. And 7.7 means almost eight. Eight is really

about the strongest magnitude that is commonly recorded when you look at the scale. Because as you

go at the magnitude, you also

have fewer and fewer earthquakes that qualify. The bottom line is that 7.7 is absolutely devastating.

And so you're looking at the collapse of many buildings, and you can say, well, maybe they should

have built it to, say, a more adequate scale. And that's true, a more adequate standard when it comes to earthquakes.

But in most places, those scales go up to about six. In other words, building codes assume that a

building should be able to survive a magnitude six earthquake. But 7.7 is beyond that, especially

in this part of the world. Other parts of the

world have higher standards when it comes to earthquake preparedness, but there are a few parts

of the earth that are more susceptible to earthquakes than the nation we know as Myanmar now. That's

what it calls itself now, the story behind that we will get to. This is what was ancient Burma and was known as Burma during the time of the British Empire

and throughout most of the 20th century until it was actually a military government

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