A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 struck west Nepal, causing tremors in several parts of northern India, including Delhi-NCR, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday at 2:51 pm. The earthquake’s epicenter was in Nepal, around 200 km southeast of Joshimath. According to experts at National Center for Seismology (NCS), the earthquake was shallow just 5 km deep leading to intense tremors in region.
People rush out of the building on Mall Road after experiencing tremors of a bit high intensity in Kanpur. #earthquake pic.twitter.com/B4pZzemJCz
— Haidar Naqvi🇮🇳 (@haidarpur) October 3, 2023
The head of the NCS office, JL Gautam, explained that Himalayan region is geologically active with many faults. Despite the region being in phase of seismic quiescence, where stress accumulates, predicting the exact location and timing of next major earthquake remains challenging.
Magnitude of earthquake
Data from NCS revealed that 6.2 magnitude earthquake was preceded by 4.6 magnitude quake at 2:25 pm and followed by two more tremors at 3:06 pm (3.6 magnitude) and 3:19 pm (3.1 magnitude). The Himalayan region has history of significant earthquakes with several magnitude 8 earthquakes recorded between 1897 and 1952 highlighting its seismic activity.
