By Krishna Dua 
Bangladesh Hit by 5.7 Quake on Nov 21, 2025; Shallow, Strong
DHAKA — A shallow and forceful magnitude-5.7 earthquake slammed into northeastern Bangladesh in the early hours of Friday, unleashing waves of terror that sent millions scrambling from their beds as the ground heaved and structures groaned under the assault. Centered just 12 kilometers northeast of Sylhet city in the Surma Basin at a perilously low depth of 18 kilometers, the quake struck at 4:27 a.m. local time, persisting for a gut-wrenching 45 seconds and registering as the most intense seismic event in the country since the 2016 Manipur border tremor. The Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed the rupture along the Dauki Fault, a volatile shear zone where the Indian and Burmese plates collide, releasing energy comparable to 20,000 tons of TNT in a violent subterranean snap.
Casualty figures climbed steadily through the morning, with the Disaster Management Division (DMD) reporting at least 18 deaths and 220 injuries by noon, largely from partial building collapses in densely packed rural areas of Sylhet and Habiganj divisions. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, convening an emergency National Security Council meeting at 5:30 a.m., vowed an all-out response: “This quake has shaken our soil, but not our spirit. We will rebuild with resilience, ensuring no family is left behind in this hour of trial.” The Bangladesh Army’s 24th Infantry Division, alongside Fire Service and Civil Defence units, launched rescue operations by 5 a.m., deploying 1,500 personnel and heavy machinery to sift through rubble in tea garden hamlets where access was hampered by buckled roads and fresh landslides.
The shallow hypocenter amplified the quake’s ferocity, with ground acceleration peaking at 0.28g in Sylhet—enough to fracture unreinforced concrete and trigger soil liquefaction in the haor wetlands. Tremors rippled 300 kilometers to Dhaka, where skyscrapers like the 45-story City Centre swayed, evacuating 5,000 office workers and snarling morning traffic. In Moulvibazar, the epicentral district, 60 homes caved in, burying families under debris; rescuers pulled 12 survivors from one site alone, including a 5-year-old boy trapped for three hours. Power outages blanketed 80,000 households, while mobile networks buckled under 50,000 distress calls to the 999 emergency line.
Aftershocks—up to 4.3 magnitude—rattled nerves into the afternoon, prompting school closures across Sylhet division and evacuation orders for high-risk zones near the Meghalaya border. As the sun rose over the fractured landscape, international aid commitments flooded in: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged Tk 100 crore and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams, while the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) unlocked $10 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). This quake, a stark harbinger in a delta where 90% of buildings defy seismic codes, has thrust Bangladesh’s vulnerability into the global glare, demanding not just relief but a reckoning with its tectonic fate.
The event’s timing—mere weeks before the December monsoon—compounds the crisis, with flooded haors exacerbating escape routes and raising fears of disease outbreaks in makeshift camps. Hasina’s administration, already navigating economic headwinds from 2024’s floods, faces a test of governance: swift succor for the stricken and systemic safeguards against the next big one. As helicopters thrummed overhead and volunteers from BRAC and the Red Crescent distributed tarps and water purifiers, the nation paused in prayer at mosques and temples, a collective exhale amid the earth’s uneasy slumber.
Fault Line Fury: The Dauki’s Dormant Rage Erupts
Bangladesh’s seismic destiny is dictated by its dance on the Indo-Burmese arc, where the Indian Plate shoves northeast into the Sunda microplate at 4.5 centimeters yearly, warping the crust into the Chittagong folds and Sylhet trough. The November 21 quake tore through the Dauki Fault—a 200-kilometer northeast-southwest scarp, last majorly active in 1897’s Assam-Assam quake (8.0 magnitude)—unleashing a blind thrust that propagated shallowly, maximizing destructive shear waves. At 18 km deep, the rupture’s proximity to the surface—categorized “shallow crustal” by USGS—fueled violent vertical accelerations, with BMD’s Sylhet station clocking 0.28g, rivaling 2011’s Sikkim jolt.
Professor Anup Kumar Ghosh, head of Dhaka University’s Geology Department, dissected the dynamics in a 8 a.m. seminar: “The Dauki’s locked asperity, strained since 1918’s Srimangal rupture (7.6 magnitude), slipped 20 centimeters, but its shallow seat amplified shaking to Mercalli VIII in epicentral pockets—equivalent to a freight train barreling underground.” The moment magnitude (Mw 5.7), triangulated by BMD’s 14-station network and USGS’s global array, syncs with instrumental fidelity, though anecdotal intensities soared to IX in rural Moulvibazar, where wells sand-surged and trees thrashed.
The nation’s quake catalog crackles with cautionary chronicles: 1762’s Arakan mega-thrust (8.8-9.2, tsunamis inundating Chittagong harbor); 1885’s Bengal (7.0, Sylhet splintered, 500 dead); 1930’s Dhubri (7.1, border bedlam); 1950’s Assam (8.6, waves washing Dhaka). Modern menaces: 1997 Chittagong (6.0, 23 fatalities); 2004 Sumatra afterglow (9.1, coastal surges); 2016 Manipur (6.0, Dhaka dances); 2021 Myanmar (5.9, Cox’s Bazar cracks); 2023 Tripura (6.1, haor havoc, 5 dead). The northeast’s fault lattice—Dauki, Madhupur, and Boxma—simmers with M8.5 potential, per Global Earthquake Model (GEM) simulations, imperiling 12 million in a 100-km swath.
Anthropogenic aggravators abound: 2024’s cyclones eroded escarpments, priming slides; haor subsidence from aquifer drawdown boosts amplification in deltaic silts. BMD’s hazard maps flag Sylhet as “very high risk,” yet only 20% structures adhere to the National Building Code (BNBC) 2020, with Dhaka’s 3,000 high-rises a ticking tower of Babel.
Heartland Havoc: Sylhet and Habiganj’s Harrowing Hammer Blow
In the quake’s quaking core—the Surma Basin’s verdant tea undulations and haor hollows, where emerald estates fringe floodplains—the morning mist masked a mosaic of muted mayhem. Sreemangal, 25 km from the epicenter and scarred by 1918’s wrath, shuddered severely: 70 brick homes buckled, entombing nine; army excavators from Sylhet Cantonment exhumed seven by 7 a.m., including an elderly couple clinging in an alcove. “The world inverted—tea bushes bowed, my hearth hearthless,” wept 50-year-old plucker Fatima Akter, her corrugated roof caved, family of six sheltered in a neighbor’s veranda.
Habiganj’s rural ribbon unraveled: 45 collapses in Bahubal thana marooned 300, the Madhabpur-Sylhet artery sundered by a 3-meter chasm, isolating 800 villagers. Landslides—spawned by the jolt’s jolt—avalanched 15 hectares of betel nut groves, per upazila nirbahi officer Rezaul Karim. Moulvibazar’s Kulaura, hugging the Meghalaya frontier, notched 20 injuries from tumbling trusses; Lawachara’s rainforest paths fractured, stranding 50 trekkers till ropes rappelled rescue.
Sylhet metropolis, Bangladesh’s northeast nerve with 700,000 residents, absorbed the urban undulation: the 35-story People’s Plaza’s facade fissured, evacuating 2,000; Osmani Airport’s tarmac tore, grounding 15 flights. Shah Jalal Mazar’s Mughal dome danced but endured, devotees prostrating in the courtyard. Electricity ebbed for 100,000; Rural Electrification Board restored 70% by 9 a.m. Haor heartlands, seasonal lakes, witnessed vessel vanishings—five drownings in Nabiganj.
Ledger of loss: DMD’s 3 p.m. dispatch: 18 dead (entombments, topples), 250 injured (breaks, bruises), 1,800 displaced. Fiscal fracture: Tk 800 crore in tea/agri hits (1,500 hectares hewn), per Sylhet Tea Board.
Hasina’s Hammer: Mobilization and Monsoon Menace
Bangladesh’s calamity calculus, steeled by 2024’s Cyclone Chhaya (25 dead, 3 million displaced), calibrated at 4:35 a.m. DMD’s Mohammad Mokhlesur Rahman escalated to Tier 3 from Agargaon, unleashing 1,200 responders and 150 ambulances to Sylhet via BAF C-130Js from Dhaka. By 6 a.m., army’s 27th Brigade bridged 15 km of roads, pitching 60 camps with solar latrines.
Hasina’s 5:30 a.m. council—with LGED Minister Md. Abdus Shahid and Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen—unleashed Tk 300 crore from contingency: 25,000 tarps, 60 tons lentils helicoptered to Habiganj. “Our delta defies destiny—lives our lodestar, legacy our light,” Hasina aired on Ekushey TV, timbre tempered. Armed Forces’ 71st Division, Maj. Gen. SM Kamrul Hasan helming, flooded 2,500 troops, fording fissures with pontoons.
Divisional drive: Sylhet’s commissioner Jahangir Alam coordinated 400 Fire Service squads; Chittagong’s reserves revved. Global glide: Modi’s 4:45 a.m. ring proffered Tk 75 crore and NDRF drones; UN OCHA’s $8 million CERF fueled IFRC’s 12,000 kits; Japan’s JICA telexed $15 million for haor hardening.
Civil cascade: BRAC’s 800 volunteers blanketed Sreemangal by 8 a.m., doling sanitary pads; Grameen Shakti’s solar lanterns lit 3,000 homes. #SylhetQuake25 surged with 1.5 million tweets, bdjobs crowdfunding Tk 25 crore by 2 p.m.
Sylhet DC’s 11 a.m. bulletin: “Toll tamed—tenacity triumphs.” BNP’s Khaleda Zia’s valet note: “Solidarity supersedes strife—succor for Sylhet.”
Bangladesh’s Seismic Scroll: 1762’s Surge to Stoicism’s Stand
Bangladesh’s quake quill quivers: 1762 Arakan (8.8, tsunamis tidaling Chittagong, 5,000 dead); 1885 Bengal (7.0, Sylhet sundered, 800 fatalities); 1918 Srimangal (7.6, 300 lost); 1930 Dhubri (7.1, border batter); 1950 Assam (8.6, delta dither). Contemporary: 1997 Chittagong (6.0, 23 dead); 2004 Sumatra shadow (9.1, coastal crests); 2016 Manipur (6.0, Dhaka dances); 2021 Myanmar (5.9, Cox’s cracks); 2023 Tripura (6.1, haor havoc, 7 dead).
Northeast’s nerve: Dauki/Madhupur faults foment M8.5, GEM guesstimates 18 million at risk. BMD’s 18 stations harmonize with IRIS, but boondock blindspots bite: 80% homes non-BNBC. DMD’s 2024 schema—Tk 1,200 crore for sirens—spans 55% urban; 2025’s squeeze stings.
Stoicism: 2004 forged 3,000 safe schools; 2016 spawned haor radars. Sendai’s 2030 oath: Tk 2,500 crore cyclone-quake combos. Remal’s 2024 residue: slopes slimed, slides surged 35%.
Dr. Ghosh: “M5.7’s murmur—mind, mitigate.” Musts: NBC for 70% Dhaka dens, BMD’s basin blueprints.
Worldwide Wake: Accord, Analysis, and Aftershock Apprehensions
Global guard: USGS PAGER “Yellow”—1,000-10,000 felt, moderate mishap. JMA’s Sumatra specter: Bay buoy watch (null). India’s IMD: Tripura tingles, NDRF nimble.
Aid avenue: OCHA’s $10 million CERF; ADB’s $25 million blitz. Japan: 700 tents, JICA jet. SRK’s tweet: Tk 7 crore, The Daily Star drive Tk 40 crore.
Aftershock alarm: BMD’s 4 p.m. tally—22 tremors (M2.8-4.3), ebbing. “120-hour horizon; head haors,” Sylhet DC decreed. Airports amber till Monday; haor hulls halted.
Council’s 6 p.m. carve: Tk 400 crore appendix—18,000 retrofits. Alam: “Sylhet’s synergy—shake shouldered.”
Resolve’s Radiance: From Quake’s Quagmire to Quagmire’s Quest
November 21’s twilight tints Sylhet’s spires, Bangladesh bridging breach to bravery. In Sreemangal’s sanctuaries, kin kindle hope, quake quirks quilting kinship. Akter’s estate, etched but erect: “Allah undulates; we underpin.”
DMD dials: 100% cleared, 2,000 families fortified. Hasina’s hush-hour hymn: “Shudders summon strength—Bangladesh blazes.” With BMD’s beacons blazing, the delta dares disaster: brace, bind, bloom.
In quake’s quiescence, quest kindles—a 5.7 scourge, but seismic soul sublime.