An elderly woman died and 23 other people were injured
after a strong earthquake shook northern Thailand, an official said on
06/05/2014 Tuesday.
The 83-year-old woman died when a wall in her house
collapsed after the 6.0-magnitude struck quake on Monday afternoon, according
to an official at the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department in Bangkok.
Another 23 people were also injured in separate incidents caused by the quake,
the official told AFP.
The quake, which struck at a shallow depth of just 7.4 kilometres (4.5 miles), had its epicenter in the remote Phan district of Chiang Rai province, geologists said, and was felt hundreds of miles to the south in Bangkok and even in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon.
“Since last evening 05/05/2014 Monday there were six
large aftershocks with a magnitude between 5.0 to 5.9 and the last was this
morning, Burin Wechbunthung, of the Meteorological Department told AFP, adding
there were a dozen smaller tremors.
Residents on Monday said they had seen cracked building
facades, broken shop windows and damage to roads, while power was cut for
several hours in Phan.
The area is a remote mountain retreat near the border
with Myanmar and Laos and popular with foreign visitors. The quake was felt in
the tourist hub city of Chiang Mai 160 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of
Chiang Rai and as far away as Bangkok, 800 kilometres to the south, where tall
buildings shook for several seconds.