Extremely mild earthquake strikes Delhi-NCR; epicentre at Rohtak

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New Delhi: An extremely mild earthquake measuring 1.3 on the Richter Scale close to the national capital at 11:55 am on Sunday (June 7). The tremors had its epicentre at the depth of 5 kilometres at 23 km south of southeast of Rohtak district in Haryana, the National Center for Seismology said. 

Earlier, two earthquakes of magnitude 4.6 and 2.9 had occurred in Rohtak in Haryana on May 29.

On June 3, a medium intensity earthquake of magnitude 3.0 occurred near Noida in the national capital region. The epicentre of the quake was 19 km southeast of Noida in Gautam Buddh Nagar district of western Uttar Pradesh adjoining Delhi.

According to some top geologists of the country, 10 low to moderate intensity tremors, shaking Delhi-NCR in the span of one and a half month indicate that a powerful earthquake could strike India's National Capital in near future

Unfortunately, Delhi falls under high risk seismic zone-4 and its border towns are witness to mushrooming growth of high rise private buildings, plenty of them which do not adhere to mandatory guidelines of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) set for earthquake resistant construction.

In fact, innumerable high rise buildings in Noida, Gurugram and neighbouring areas of Delhi blatantly violate BIS norms.

Since April 12 to May 29 this year, ten earthquakes have been recorded in Delhi-NCR by National Centre for Seismology. During this period, four tremors in Uttarakhand and six in Himachal Pradesh were also recorded.

Most of these earthquakes were of low magnitude measuring from 2.3 to 4.5. However, a series of such earthquakes ostensibly warn of a major earthquake to hit Delhi in coming days. One of the reasons for increasing numbers of tremors hitting Delhi is that the local fault system here is quite active. Such fault systems around Delhi are capable of producing an earthquake of magnitude around 6 to 6.5, IANS quoted Indian Metrology Departmen official as saying.

A study also revealed that parts of south and central Delhi are more safer then areas which are located near the riverbed of Yamuna.