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Magnitude 5.1 quake hits Bay of Bengal; tremors felt in Kolkata
Tremors felt in Kolkata triggered panic even as there were no reports of immediate damage in the city and its surrounding areas
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit the Bay of Bengal off the Odisha and West Bengal coasts around 6:10am on Tuesday. Tremors felt in Kolkata triggered panic even as there were no reports of immediate damage in the city and its surrounding areas.
The National Centre for Seismology said the quake occurred at a depth of 91 km in the Bay of Bengal.
Susmita Deb, a Kolkata resident, said she had just woken up when the earthquake struck and everything started shaking. “It lasted for a few seconds,” she said.
Kolkata falls under seismic zone 4, which is susceptible to the high damage risk of severe earthquakes. There are four seismic zones with zone 5 being the most and zone 2 the least active. Around 11% of the country falls in zone 5, 18% in zone 4, 30% in zone 3, and the remaining in zone 2.
A magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck Delhi, which also lies in the seismic zone 4, last week with its epicentre beneath Jheel Park in Dhaula Kuan. The quake lasted only a few seconds but was felt across the National Capital Region (NCR) due to its shallow depth of 5km.
Weak zones and fault lines surround Delhi making it susceptible to seismic activity. Proximity to the Himalayas, which was formed by one of the largest tectonic plate collisions on the planet over millions of years, poses a larger threat.
