Capacity building enables unique near-fault observations of the destructive 2025 Mw 7.7 Myanmar earthquake

Abstract

We present an overview of the Naypyitaw station (NPW) in Myanmar, which is managed by the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) and is part of the GEOFON (GE) network (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15921214, Bindi et al., 2025). The station is equipped with both strong-motion and broadband sensors and is situated 2.6 km from the Sagaing Fault, providing an exceptional near-fault recording of the Mw 7.7 earthquake that occurred on 28 March 2025. The installation and ongoing maintenance of NPW are the result of a collaborative effort between DMH and the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), prompted by the GFZ International Training Course on seismology and seismic hazard assessment (ITC) in 2016. In this study, we provide background information on the collaborative effort that led to the installation of the only station providing near-fault, on-scale measurements of the 2025 Myanmar earthquake. Given the widespread interest in the data recorded by the station, we describe the instrumental settings in detail and how to access data and metadata for station NPW. Given the relevance of the near-fault recordings at NPW not only for constraining the rupture process of the mainshock but also for engineering seismology applications, we analyze key features of the mainshock from an engineering seismology perspective. This includes an examination of ground motion amplitudes, frequency content, response spectra, and near-fault effects such as the fling effect and pulse-like motion. The high-quality near-field data at NPW provide valuable information for seismic hazard assessment in the region and offer useful constraints for studies investigating the rupture characteristics of the mainshock, which preliminary findings suggest propagated at supershear speed.