New Delhi, Aug 11 (Inditop.com) A strong earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck north of the Andaman islands early Tuesday and jolted not just the archipelago but large parts of eastern India, from Jharkhand right down the east coast till Tamil Nadu, as well as Bangladesh. No casualties were reported.
The quake in the Bay of Bengal that struck at 1.25 a.m. led to tremors in several parts of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. It also led to a tsunami warning that was later withdrawn.
Thousands of people spent the entire night on roads and fields fearing aftershocks.
The India Meteorological Department here reported the epicentre of the quake at latitude 14.10 north and longitude 93.00 east, just north of the Andaman Islands, and 1,020 km southeast of the Orissa capital Bhubaneswar where the jolt was clearly felt.
“No casualties or damage have been reported so far,” Balaram Singh, officer on special duty in the Orissa revenue control room, told Inditop about six hours after the temblor.
“We were sleeping. We woke up after our house was shaken and some of our windows opened suddenly,” said 45-year-old Sadasiba Mohapatra, a business executive who ran out of his Bhubaneswar apartment along with his wife.
The US Geological Survey immediately issued a tsunami alert for the coasts of India, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. But the alert was withdrawn after a few hours when it became clear that no tsunami wave had been generated.
In Andhra Pradesh, high tidal waves along the Bay of Bengal coast raised fears of tsunami among fishermen and people living in the coastal belt. The Visakhapatnam Cyclone Warning Centre, however, said such tidal waves were common after a quake.
“We were afraid to go back to our house and remained in an open ground till dawn,” said a resident of Kakinada town.
Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram, Vijayawada, Rajhamundry and Tirupati towns also felt the tremors.
Immediately after the quake, authorities in the state alerted fishermen along the coast and advised them not to venture into the sea.
“Though no tsunami alert was issued, we still advised fishermen not to go into the sea as a precaution,” said Kishore Kumar, the revenue divisional officer in Kakinada.
The Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which runs the tsunami warning system, has said that there was no need to panic as a tsunami is not likely to occur as a result of the quake.
“Usually aftershocks are recorded after a quake but there are no chances of another big earthquake,” said INCOIS director S.C. Shenoi.
But the panic did not subside so easily.
In Tamil Nadu, where tremors were felt in Chennai, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore and other coastal areas, rumours of a tsunami did the rounds — bringing back the 2004 nightmare when thousands in India died.
Minor tremors were felt in Kolkata, the coastal areas of West Bengal and as far inland as Jharkhand, forcing people to come out of their houses.
People made frantic calls to friends and relatives after the jolt. A few houses in the Jharkhand capital Ranchi suffered minor cracks.
In Bangladesh, Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet and the southern coastal region felt the quake at 2.55 a.m. local time, Star Online reported.
“The tsunami alert was issued at around 4 a.m. It was withdrawn at about 6.40 a.m.,” Meteorologist Mominul Islam told The Daily Star newspaper.
