New Delhi/Feb,17 : Strong tremors were felt in Delhi and its adjoining areas at 5:36 am today after a 4.0-magnitude earthquake struck the national capital.
The National Centre for Seismology, the nodal agency of the Government of India for monitoring earthquake activity in the country, said in an update that tremors were felt across north India, with Delhi as the epicentre.
The quake’s depth was just 5 km.The epicentre was near Durgabai Deshmukh College of Special Education in Dhaula Kuan, an official told the news agency PTI.
That region, which has a lake nearby, has been experiencing smaller, low-magnitude quakes once every two to three years. It recorded an earthquake of 3.3 magnitude in 2015, he said.The official also added that a loud sound was heard when the earthquake hit Delhi.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged the residents of Delhi and nearby areas to “stay calm” and follow safety precautions.”Tremors were felt in Delhi and nearby areas. Urging everyone to stay calm and follow safety precautions, staying alert for possible aftershocks. Authorities are keeping a close watch on the situation,” he wrote in a post on X.Acting Delhi Chief Minister Atishi said a “strong earthquake just hit” Delhi and prayed that everyone was safe.
A vendor at the New Delhi Railway Station said that “everything was shaking”. “Customers started screaming,” he said.A passenger waiting for his train at the station said it felt like a train was “running here underground”. A resident of Ghaziabad said the tremors were “so strong” and that he had “never felt like this before”.Delhi is prone to earthquakes as it is located in a high seismic zone (zone IV) of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) seismic zonation map.
On January 23, strong tremors were felt across Delhi-NCR after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck China’s Xinjiang at a depth of 80 kilometres. Two weeks before that, mild tremors were last felt in Delhi and nearby areas on January 11 after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan.
