Tremors were felt in the city and its satellite areas on Tuesday evening when a powerful earthquake struck western Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The tremors were felt around 5 pm for about 45 seconds, which left people rushing out into open spaces.
Director J.L. Gautam, seismology department at IMD, said, “The magnitude of the quake was 7.0 Richter scale. It occurred at a latitude of 27 degree north and longitude of 65.7 degree east and was at a depth of 10 kilometres at the epicentre in Pakistan. The intensity of the quake in Pakistan was between 9 to 10, whereas that in Delhi was between 3 to 4 which can be called as a mild or slight earthquake.”
The MeT department informed that mild tremors were also felt in north-western Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and even Maharashtra, but there were no reports of any damage. The quake was experienced in the border areas of Jaisalmer and Barmer. People in Jaipur also said that they experienced the tremors, but the MeT department denied it.
The tremors, which lasted for about a minute, forced people to evacuate their buildings and move out into open spaces. “I was on the 15th floor of our office building and everything suddenly started shaking. Even my glass of water, which was kept on a table, toppled down. We all took the emergency stairs and moved out of the office,” said Disha Arora, who works in Connaught Place.
Also those on two-wheelers stopped and waited for the quake to subside. “I was riding my bike and it started trembling. I slowed down and realised it was an earthquake. So I, along with a few others, parked our motorcycles on the street side and waited for things to normalise,” said Ujjwal Sharma, who was headed towards ITO.
Even Noida and Gurgaon witnessed the tremors in the evening.