Strong tremors were felt in Delhi and parts of north India, shaken by a moderate intensity quake this afternoon resulting in minor damage to some buildings.
The quake, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale, had its epicentre in Haryana's Bahadurgarh district. The tremors were felt at around 1:11 pm for less than 10 seconds. Though the quake did not cause any major damage, it created widespread panic with students rushing out of schools in neighbouring Gurgaon, Faridabad and Noida.
People living in multi-storeyed buildings and working in high-rise offices were also seen running out.
However, the US Geological Survey pegged the magnitude of the quake at 5.2 on the Richter Scale. The fire brigade and police said they had not received any calls of casualty or damage in Delhi.
However, in Haryana, the epicentre of the quake, minor cracks were reported in old buildings. The outer periphery of a school building in Rohtak also developed cracks. Reports said that six labourers working in a ‘Gaushala’ at a village in Hissar were injured when the wall collapsed, but police maintained that the incident took place at least half an hour before the tremor.
Superintendent of Police of Jhajjar, Patram Singh, in whose district the town of epicentre falls, said there was no major damage reported from anywhere.
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There were reports of minor damage to a shrine in Dujana village where labourers were engaged in some repair work and wall of a house collapsing in Lakaria village in Jhajjar, but Singh said these reports were unconfirmed so far.
Rohtak’s deputy commissioner, Vikas Gupta said though there were minor cracks in some buildings, particularly, some old structures, there was no other damage caused by the earthquake. He also dismissed as false reports of damage caused to a school building in Mayna village located on Rohtak-Jhajjar road.
"We sent teams there to check it, but found nothing. Reports to this effect are not true. In fact, we not only got the government high school building in Mayna village checked up, but also two school buildings of private schools were checked, but there was no damage," Gupta said.
Bhiwani’s Superintendent of Police, Satish Balan said the "quake was strongly felt, but it has not caused any damage in the district". Besides Bahadurgarh, the tremors were felt in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hisar and Bhiwani in Haryana and Ghaziabad, Noida and Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
On Monday’s earthquake that shook the capital and certain areas in its neighbouring states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh was the 19th tremor in the country this year so far and third in the past five days. The tremor, measuring 4.9 on the Richter Scale with Haryana’s Bahadurgarh as epicentre, shook Delhi and neighbouring towns at 1:11 pm. According to the Indian Meteorological Department, this was the 19th quake in the country this year so far and third this month alone.
In January this year, there were 10 tremors which were recorded in various parts of India. Six quakes measuring between 5.0 to 3.6 on the Richter scale were felt in February. Last year, there were 80 earthquakes in India, which measured between 3.5 to 6.5 on the Richter scale. A majority of these quakes occurred in the northern Indian regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Harayana and Punjab. "India has always been a zone which experiences a lot of seismic activities since ancient times. We are continously doing research in the seismology department," R S Dattatrayam, a scientist with IMD’s Seismic Department, told PTI. "Delhi will continue to experience these quakes and termors as it falls on the junctures of faults and ridges," said Dattatrayam.
According to the Seismic Zone Mapping done by the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Delhi is among 30 cities in the country falling in zone IV, which is defined as a severe intensity seismic zone. This is the third tremor in Delhi, which is among the 30 cities which fall in the high risk seismic zone, since September last year.