People rush out to streets as Kolkata jolted by earthquake: Videos

Videos by local outlets and news agencies showed people gathered either in panic, or joking in relief, in Salt Lake and other areas.

Updated on: Feb 27, 2026, 14:40:06 IST

Written by Aarish Chhabra

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People rushed out of buildings, onto the streets as Kolkata was jolted by an earthquake on Friday afternoon, with residents reporting tremors across the city around 1:22 pm.

People on the street in Kolkata after the city felt strong tremors. (PTI Video Grab)

According to the National Centre for Seismology (NCS), the quake registered a magnitude of 5.5, at a depth of 10 km, with its epicentre in southwestern Bangladesh. The US Geological Survey (USGS) had earlier recorded a magnitude of 5.3, and said the epicentre was 26 km southeast of Taki, West Bengal.

Videos by local outlets and news agencies showed people gathered either in panic, or joking in relief, in Salt Lake and other areas.

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Recounting the moment, Swagata, a Kolkata resident, told a news agency: “We were sitting on our sofa when we suddenly felt the tremors. We rushed out of our house. The sofa and fan were shaking, and a bottle kept on a table fell down. All of us have rushed downstairs.”

Shallow earthquakes are generally more dangerous than deep earthquakes — between 0 and 70 km deep; followed by intermediate earthquakes, 70 - 300 km deep; and deep earthquakes at 300-700 km. In general, the term "deep-focus earthquakes" is applied to earthquakes deeper than 70 km, the USGS states.

Earlier in the day, an earthquake of magnitude 2.7 struck Namchi in Sikkim.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aarish Chhabra
Aarish Chhabra is an Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times online team, writing news reports and explanatory articles, besides overseeing coverage for the website. His career spans nearly two decades across India's most respected newsrooms in print, digital, and broadcast. He has reported, written, and edited across formats — from breaking news and live election coverage, to analytical long-reads and cultural commentary — building a body of work that reflects both editorial rigour and a deep curiosity about the society he writes for. Aarish studied English literature, sociology and history, besides journalism, at Panjab University, Chandigarh, and started his career in that city, eventually moving to Delhi. He is also the author of ‘The Big Small Town: How Life Looks from Chandigarh’, a collection of critical essays originally serialised as a weekly column in the Hindustan Times, examining the culture and politics of a city that is far more than its famous architecture — and, in doing so, holding up a mirror to modern India. In stints at the BBC, The Indian Express, NDTV, and Jagran New Media, he worked across formats and languages; mainly English, also Hindi and Punjabi. He was part of the crack team for the BBC Explainer project replicated across the world by the broadcaster. At Jagran, he developed editorial guides and trained journalists on integrity and content quality. He has also worked at the intersection of journalism and education. At the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, he developed a website that simplified academic research in management. At Bennett University's Times School of Media in Noida, he taught students the craft of digital journalism: from newsgathering and writing, to social media strategy and video storytelling. Having moved from a small town to a bigger town to a mega city for education and work, his intellectual passions lie at the intersection of society, politics, and popular culture — a perspective that informs both his writing and his view of the world. When not working, he is constantly reading long-form journalism or watching brainrot content, sometimes both at the same time.Read More

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