Bangkok, March 29, 2025 – As rescue teams sift through the rubble of a collapsed 33-story skyscraper in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district following a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar on March 28, a new crisis has emerged: Thailand’s archaic disaster alert system is struggling to keep pace with the urgency of such events.
The earthquake, centered 600 miles away near Mandalay, claimed at least 10 lives in Bangkok, injured dozens, and left up to 100 people potentially trapped. Amid the chaos, concerns over delayed emergency notifications have sparked a heated response from Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
At a tense meeting with disaster response and telecommunications agencies, the Prime Minister voiced frustration over not receiving an SMS alert about the earthquake, which struck at 1:20 PM local time (+07). “I didn’t get a single message,” she said, pressing officials for answers on why the system failed to inform her—and millions of others—in a timely manner.
The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) clarified that, unlike storms or tsunamis, earthquakes cannot be predicted, meaning alerts are only issued post-event. The DDPM sent its first alert at 2:42 PM—over an hour after the quake—via the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). However, the current SMS alert system, limited to sending 200,000 messages every 15 minutes, caused significant delays. With Thailand’s population exceeding 70 million and Bangkok alone home to over 8 million, the bottleneck left many uninformed during critical moments.
An upgrade to the Cell Broadcast system, which promises faster and broader messaging capabilities, remains months away, slated for mid-2025. In the interim, expanding the SMS system to reach 3 million numbers simultaneously would still take 5-6 hours due to queuing constraints, according to NBTC officials. “We’re working within the limits of what we have,” an NBTC spokesperson said, acknowledging the system’s inadequacy for a disaster of this scale.
The earthquake’s impact was immediate and devastating. The Office of the Auditor General Building, a nearly completed 33-story project by Italian-Thai Development and China Railway No.10 Engineering Group, crumbled during the tremors, killing multiple construction workers and leaving dozens of others still missing or trapped in the rubble as of press time. Rescue operations, ongoing as of March 29, have detected vital signs of about 15 trapped individuals, though the death toll is expected to rise. Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt declared the city a “disaster area,” while engineers scramble to inspect nearly 200 buildings for structural damage.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn made very clear the need for swift improvements, urging better coordination with mobile networks to bolster the SMS system’s reach. She also highlighted gaps in the current setup: Foreign nationals, a significant population in Bangkok, often missed alerts due to language barriers or unregistered numbers, and no updates were provided on transport disruptions, including the Skytrain shutdown that stranded thousands.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Thailand has faced criticism for lagging behind regional peers like Japan and Indonesia, where advanced early warning systems have saved countless lives. The Cell Broadcast delay—pushed back from an earlier 2024 target due to budget and technical hurdles—has reignited debate over disaster preparedness.
As aftershocks continue to rattle nerves, with a 6.4-magnitude tremor felt late on March 28, the government faces mounting pressure. “This isn’t just about technology—it’s about lives,” said Suriyachai Rawiwan, DDPM director, defending his team’s efforts while pledging to expedite upgrades.
