The massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Nepal brought repeated tremors across large swathes of North and East India. The death toll in India due to the earthquakes has climbed to 17, with nine dead in Bihar, seven in Uttar Pradesh and one in West Bengal till now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi headed a high-level emergency meeting in Delhi over the earthquakes in Nepal and India.
The main shock occurred at 11.41 am, about 65 km away from Kathmandu. The second shock followed thirty minutes later at about 12.15 pm, 20 km east of the main event. The amount of energy released after a quake is enormous and the energy released is exponentially related to the magnitude of the earthquake.
The roof of Kamakhya temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh also had to bear the brunt of the earthquake. Tremors were felt in Delhi as well. According to latest updates by Skymet, it is possible to feel some more tremors in North India including Delhi and East India, during next 24 hours. There is no pattern or periodicity for these aftershocks; it could come in few hours, minutes or seconds. However, there is no need to worry or panic as the intensity of the tremors is expected to be low.
With lapse in time of occurrence of the main shock, periodicity of aftershocks will increase and intensity will decrease. To be precise, the aftershocks will not be very frequent now and the gap between the shocks will increase. A bit of relief that it occurred in the day time was that the rescue operations were carried out easily. Scale of calamity is lesser as people were not sleeping and could run away to save their lives, if not property.
Image Credit: ANI
