Tremors jolt Doon residents

DEHRADUN: People in the city rushed out of their homes and offices on Monday afternoon after strong tremors, which lasted about a minute, rocked parts of Uttarakhand. The tremors were felt as a strong earthquake having a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale with its epicentre in the Hindukush mountain range hit north-east Afghanistan.There were no reports of injury or loss in the state, sources said.
People, especially those living and working in high rise buildings panicked after feeling the jolts around 2:40 pm.
“I was in office when my colleague shouted that the building is shaking and earthquake has hit us. We all came down running, as the tremors were really strong,” Priyanka Singh, who works in an insurance company, told TOI. Similarly, hundreds of people remained outside their buildings for over an hour as they were scared to enter any structure.
Himanshu Rawat, a college student said, “We were in the class when I felt my bench shaking and so was the ceiling fan. The tremor lasted over 40 seconds and all the students ran outside.”
According to Bikram Singh, director, MeT Centre, “The epicentre of the earthquake, at a depth of 190 km, was at Hindukush in Afghanistan at latitude 36.5 degree North and longitude 70.8 degree east. Even though the earthquake was of great intensity, the shockwaves felt in Uttarakhand was of slight intensity due to the distance between the originating point and our region.”
Meanwhile, there were no immediate reports of any loss of life or property in the state. Piyoosh Rautela, executive director, Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre (DMMC), told TOI, “We have checked with our disaster management teams in each district and so far, there are no reports of any causalities or damage to property in the state. Uttarakhand is very far from the epicentre and there are negligible chances of any damage in places having such a large distance from the originating point.”
It is to be noted that Uttarakhand lies in high-risk seismic zone with most of its part is in the Zone 4 and 5.