New Delhi: Tremors were felt in the Delhi-NCR region and several northern states like Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, on Tuesday evening, after a strong earthquake hit the India-Pakistan border region near Jammu and Kashmir.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 on the Richter Scale shook northern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing five people and injuring 50, officials said.
At around 4.30 PM, tremors were felt in Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh, J&K, parts of Himachal Pradesh and several towns in Pakistan, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa range.
The quake struck 23 km north of Jhelum, Pakistan, at a relatively shallow depth of 10 km, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the temblor of magnitude 6.3 on the Richter Scale and at a depth of 40 km hit the Pakistan-India border region.
“The (most) damage is in the areas between Jhelum and Mirpur,” said the chief of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, Lieutenant- General Mohammad Afzal.
“The epicentre was near the India-Pakistan border. The closest big city to the epicentre was Rawalpindi,” said J L Gautam, head of operations at the National Centre for Seismology (NCS).
“I don’t think that the quake has caused any damage in Delhi but there are several villages with poor constructions, which might get damaged. We can’t predict the aftershocks right now,” he added.
” The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) measured the earthquake at magnitude 6.1, which struck 173 km North-West of Lahore, Pakistan”.
Pakistan Meteorological Department’s earthquake centre, however, said the earthquake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale and its depth was at 10 kms.
It said the epicenter of the quake was located near the mountainous city of Jhelum in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The tremors shook walls in Islamabad and left the panicked people rushing to the streets outside.
