Strong tremors shake North India as high intensity earthquake hits Tajikstan

A high intensity earthquake hit Tajikistan on Friday night, tremors of which were felt in Delhi NCR and several other parts of north India.

India's National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said the magnitude of the quake was 6.3, while the U.S Geological Survey put the quake's magnitude at 5.9 and centred 35 km west of Tajikistan in central Asia.

Earlier the seismology department erroneously gave the epicentre as Amritsar and put the quake's depth at 19 km. It later sent a revised statement saying it was a software error.


"The epicentre of the earthquake is Tajikistan. Our preliminary findings said the epicentre was Amritsar. We have now revised the epicentre," J L Gautam, Operations Head of the NCS said.

Reuters quoted G.Suresh, a senior scientist at the IMD, as saying there were two earthquakes within 10 minutes in Tajikistan and Sichuan ( China) and that seismic waves were mixed up in data monitoring.

In Delhi, and in many other places across the north, the tremors at 10.31 pm caused people to rush out of their homes in panic. However, there were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was virtually interacting with students of University of Chicago, was heard saying, his entire room was "shaking".

National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah said the tremors reminded the people of the 2005 quake in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Not since the earthquake of 2005 have the tremors in Srinagar been bad enough to force me out of the house. I grabbed a blanket and ran. I didn't remember to take my phone and so was unable to tweet while the damn ground was shaking," he tweeted.

The Himalayan and the Hindukush mountain ranges are prone to quakes and many a time its tremors can be felt across the Indo-Gangetic belt.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal prayed for safety of people. Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra also tweeted about the tremors and prayed for well being of all.