Yet again, Kolkata experienced aftershocks of an earthquake Wednesday afternoon around 4 PM. A decent series of tremors were felt as civilians and office goers rushed out of their offices to safety as everyone around feared about the same catastrophic consequences of the previous natural disasters Kolkata met years ago.
The epicentre of the 6.8 magnitude Earthquake has been identified to be near Myanmar and tremors were felt in parts of eastern India including Ranchi, West Bengal, Guwahati, Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. According to reports, the quake struck 143 km (88 miles) west of the city of Meiktila in former Burma more than the 500 kilometers from the Indian border.
The depth has been estimated at 84.1 kilometres and has affected Bangladesh on a catastrophic level.
As of now no casualties have been reported anywhere but a number of people have been reported with injuries in Myanmar. However, Kolkata has been put on alert as the Metro facilities had been temporarily closed down along with government offices.
A 5.5-magnitude earthquake in the Myanmar-India border region had rocked Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya and some other parts of northeast India on Tuesday.Seismologists consider India’s mountainous northeast region as the sixth major earthquake-prone belt in the world.
“Tremors were felt in Darjeeling and Siliguri in North Bengal, but there is nor report of casualty so far, He said the intensity of quake was low and he doesn’t expect any loss to property or life.”
-District Magistrate of Darjeeling Anurag Shrivastava
As of now Kolkata has been put on alert for any future aftershocks in the next few hours.
Information has been obtained from USGS National Earthquake Information Centre,PDE.
