Myanmar civil war (2021–present) in the context of 2011–2015 Myanmar political reforms

2024 (MMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2024th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 24th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2020s decade.

The year saw the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war, and the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel. Israel's war on Gaza led to widespread protests and spillover conflicts into numerous other countries, most notably Lebanon, which was invaded by Israel in October. This followed an intensification of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In September, Israel escalated an offensive against the group, which resulted in the killing of the Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah. Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, had also been assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran in July, and his successor Yahya Sinwar was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in October. In November, heavy fighting resumed in the Syrian civil war, leading to the toppling of Ba'athist Syria, with Bashar al-Assad fleeing Syria in December. The year also saw a rise in activity by the Houthi movement which contributed to a crisis in the Red Sea that impacted global shipping.

On 28 March 2025, at 12:50:52 MMT (06:20:52 UTC), a moment magnitude (M_w ) 7.7–7.9 earthquake struck the Sagaing Region of Myanmar, with an epicenter close to Mandalay, the country's second-largest city. The shaking caused by this strike-slip shock reached a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar since 1912, and the second deadliest in Myanmar's modern history, surpassed only by upper estimates of the 1930 Bago earthquake. The earthquake caused extensive damage in Myanmar, particularly in areas near the rupture, and significant damage in neighboring Thailand. Hundreds of homes were also damaged in Yunnan, China, while more than 400 apartments were affected in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The earthquake directly killed up to 5,352 people in Myanmar and 103 in Thailand, while one person died from shock in Vietnam. Up to 11,404 people were injured and hundreds more were reported missing. Most of the fatalities in Thailand occurred at a collapsed construction site in Bangkok, whose shallow geology makes it more vulnerable to seismic waves from far away. Authorities in both Myanmar and Thailand declared a state of emergency. As the earthquake struck during Friday prayer hours, collapsing mosques resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Muslims. In addition, more than 8,300 monasteries, nunneries and pagodas were destroyed. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar exacerbated the difficulty of disaster relief and info exposure. It was the deadliest earthquake globally since the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes.