Just eight days after strong tremors, a mild earthquake again hit the city and its surrounding areas on Wednesday morning. However, the intensity of the earthquake was low and measured 3.2 on the Richter scale. The epicentre of the quake was said to be Sonepat in Haryana. No loss of life or property has been reported.
According to a weather department official, the phenomenon was recorded at 8.36 am on Wednesday and lasted for a few seconds. The tremors were so mild that not many seemed to have noticed.
“I came to know about it only from the news channels,” said Hridyesh Kumar, a resident of Mayur Vihar in east Delhi. He added that thankfully it was not of a higher intensity.
“I could not help remembering the Bhuj earthquake that too had occurred on January 26 in 2001,” he added. Nearly 20,000 people were killed, at least 1.6 lakh injured and more than four lakh were rendered homeless in the devastating quake.
The met department said that the spread of the quake was from Sonepat to Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh. An official said that while the quake that had occurred on January 18 was linked to plate movements as the region of its epicentre, south-west Pakistan, falls in the line where Indian and Eurasian plates meet, the one that occurred on Wednesday could be more of a local phenomenon. As it is, Delhi and its surrounding areas do fall under the seismic zone.
The tremors felt on January 18 around 2 am were strong enough to jolt people out of their sleep and make them rush out of their houses.
The officials had maintained that fortunately the quake was epicentred in a sparsely populated area, otherwise devastation caused by a quake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale could have been very high.