Earthquake strikes Afghanistan; tremors felt across North India Delhi, NCR
NEW DELHI :A powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake jolted Delhi and several parts of northern India experienced strong tremors on Wednesday after an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale struck on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border. The tremors were felt around 12.42 pm in the Delhi-NCR region.
Strong tremors were also felt in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, covering a vast stretch of North India.The tremors triggered panic in the national capital forcing people to evacuate residential buildings and office complexes.
As per the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan at a depth of 191 kilometres. Its epicenter was located some 35 kilometres south of Jarm, in the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border region. Jarm is located around 380 kilometres from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.
The tremor struck at 12.36 pm Indian Standard Time (IST) and jolted Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi-NCR in north India.No loss of life or damage to property has been reported from India so far.
From Pakistan, there are reports that at least one person died and several others were injured in Balochistan’s Lasbela due to the earthquake.A girl was killed and nine persons were injured in Lasbella due to collapsing of a house, Geo News reported. Two school children were injured in Peshawar while running in panic from school building.
The quake was felt in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces as well as in capital Islamabad and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.In Jammu and Kashmir, a girder of the under-construction Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh flyover in Srinagar slipped off pillars near Aloochibagh due to the earthquake. No one was hurt in the incident.
The girder slipped off the pillars and fell on a crane which was used to put it on two pillars during the intervening night, Minister for Works Naeem Akhtar told PTI.”The girder had just been installed on the pillars and had not been fixed yet.There is no structural damage to the flyover project due to the earthquake,” Akhtar said.
(With Agency inputs)
