Strong earthquake jolts Valley

Srinagar: A strong earthquake of magnitude 6.1 jolted northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said, with tremors felt as far away as Srinagar and New Delhi.

The quake hit at 12:37 IST near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 191 kilometres (119 miles), the US Geological Survey said.

Tremors were felt in several parts of northern India, including Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan. Panicked people were seen rushing out on streets after they felt the tremors.

“The epicentre of the quake was near the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border and occurred at a depth of around 190 kilometres,” an official said in Srinagar.

Officials snapped electricity supply briefly as a precautionary measure.

Meanwhile, a girder of the under-construction Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh flyover in Srinagar slipped off pillars near Aloochibagh due to the earthquake, officials said. However, no one was hurt in the incident.

The girder slipped off the pillars and fell on a crane which was used to put it on two pillars during the intervening night, minister for works Naeem Akhtar told PTI.

There were no reports of any damage in India due to the earthquake.

In the national capital, Delhi Metro trains were halted briefly but services were not disrupted, said an official.

The epicentre was near Afghanistan’s Jarm, which was hit by a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015 that triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing more than 380 people across the region.

However, in neighbouring Pakistan at least one infant and nine of her family members reported injured in southwest Pakistan’s Balochistan province, following the collapse of a roof on their home, media reports said. The offices and schools were quickly evacuated in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore.

Pakistan officials also dispatched teams in Balochistan and nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to assess reports of damage.

 

 

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