Two strong quakes of magnitude 7.0 strike northeast Myanmar, but no tsnunami warning issued

Two strong quakes of magnitude 7.0 struck northeast Myanmar, close to the Thai and Laotian borders, the US Geological Survey reported on Thursday.

It said the quakes struck seconds apart at 8:25 p.m. on Thursday (1355 GMT) and were centered 69 miles north of Chiang Rai in neighboring Thailand. The first one was very shallow, at a depth of 6.2 miles, while the second one was deeper at 142.5 miles.

It is a sparsely populated, hilly area best known as the Golden Triangle, which is a traditional source of illicit opium.

No tsunami warning was issued, with US seismologists saying the tremor was too far inland to generate a devastating wave in the Indian Ocean.
  
Police in Thailand's Mae Sai district, the northernmost area on the border with Myanmar, said a 52-year-old woman was killed after a wall of her house collapsed during the quake.
  
Colonel Thanomsak Yospan, superintendent of Mae Sai district police, told AFP that the woman's home was poorly constructed and said she was the only known casualty so far.
  
In central Hanoi -- two countries away from the epicenter - the quake was felt as a smooth rocking motion that lasted for several seconds.