The shock occurred 35 km (22 mi) beneath the surface with a maximum Rossi–Forel intensity of IX (Devastating tremor).

The earthquake was the result of rupture along a 131 km (81 mi) segment of the Sagaing Fault—a major strike-slip fault that runs through the country.

Extensive damage was reported in the southern part of the country, particularly in Bago and Yangon, where buildings collapsed and fires erupted.

Myanmar is wedged between four tectonic plates—the Indian, Eurasian, Sunda and Burma plates that interact due to active geological processes.

[1] A 1,400 km (870 mi) transform fault runs through Myanmar and connects the Andaman spreading center to a collision zone in the north.

Called the Sagaing Fault, it is a boundary between the Burma and Sunda plates as they slide past each other at 18–49 mm (0.71–1.93 in) per year.

It is Myanmar's largest and most active source of earthquakes, running through or close to major cities including Yangon, Nay Pyi Daw and Mandalay.

The recurrence interval also vary depending on the location along the fault; its southern segments which ruptured in 1930 have return periods of 100–150 years based on paleoseismological studies.

[3] Destructive earthquakes have affected the area for centuries but there is limited academic research to understand their seismological characteristics.

The 1975 Bagan earthquake was caused by reverse faulting within the Indian plate at an intermediate depth of 120 km (75 mi).

[9] The magnitude is identical to that catalogued by the International Seismological Centre, which estimated a 35 km (22 mi) focal depth.

A 2009 study published in Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America found surface ruptures with 20 cm (7.9 in) vertical displacements.

Buildings and pagodas near the fault collapsed to the southeast (in Bago), east and east-southeast (in Tawa) and west-northwest (in Tongyi).

[13] A maximum seismic intensity of IX on the Rossi–Forel scale was assigned to a pear-shaped 971 km2 (375 sq mi) area along the fault.

At the cinema in Zaingganaing Quarter, a show was in progress when the earthquake occurred, collapsing the structure and killing 60 to 80 people.

The bazaar area was left in heaps of ruined bricks, twisted metal and charred wood after a fire.

[20] The minarets of mosques collapsed onto alleys; a municipal office was heavily damaged while a ferrocement building and high school were razed.

[20][27][21] The greatest damage occurred in the southern part of the city which sits on alluvium deposited by the Irrawaddy River.

Along China Street, a five-storey pucca building collapsed inwards;[18][21] a coolie group extracted six bodies and two survivors who later died from their injuries.

[29] The British Geological Survey building along Dalhousie Street had extensive cracking, and its interior which housed a laboratory and museum was in shambles.

[31] In Thailand, shock was generally felt moderately, however, in Chiang Mai, fractures formed in many brick structures and plaster broke off a hospital.

People on the City of Carlisle, S. S. Berne and Kyokai Maru, ships on deeper waters, felt hard jolts and thought their vessels had collided with an object.

[29] By June, the Muslim population began reconstruction efforts for the mosque while the Buddhist community initiated a fundraising campaign for the Shwemawdaw Pagoda.

[37][38] The southernmost 180 km (110 mi) offshore extension in the Andaman Sea is also a seismic gap and no large earthquakes has been associated with it.

Peernan Towashiraporn, director of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center said the impact in Yangon could be similar to that of Kathmandu during the 2015 Nepal earthquake, where 9,000 were killed.