Epicentre of the earthquake was 118 km north-northwest of Rajkot

New Delhi:

A 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck near Gujarat’s Rajkot at 8.13 PM Sunday, according to the National Center for Seismology (NCS). The epicentre of the earthquake was 118 km north-northwest of Rajkot, according to the NCS.

No injuries, deaths or damages have been reported so far.

Visuals from news agency ANI showed people gathered outside houses and apartment buildings in the Prahlad Nagar area of Ahmedabad, where tremors were felt. Tremors were also felt in cities like Kutch and Patan, according to news agency PTI.

Gujarat: People come out of their houses in Ahmedabad following tremors in the state; visuals from Prahlad Nagar area in the city.

National Center for Seismology (NCS) has ascertained that magnitude of the earthquake was 5.5 on the Richter scale. pic.twitter.com/h0NVlQmoEj

— ANI (@ANI) June 14, 2020

According to the NCS website, the moderate-intensity quake struck around 85 km from Bhuj, the site of a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake on January 26, 2001 that reportedly killed over 20,000 people and left over 1.5 lakh others injured.

Less than 30 minutes after the Gujarat quake, a 2.9 magnitude tremor was recorded 90 km east of Katra in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the NCS.

Sunday night’s earthquakes were the latest in a series of minor and moderate quakes to have hit parts of northern India; the most recent was a low-intensity quake (2.1 magnitude) that struck near Gurgaon in Haryana, with tremors felt in Delhi as well.

As many as 14 quakes have hit the national capital, or nearby regions, in the last two months, with a 4.5 magnitude event near Haryana’s Rohtak the biggest.

Experts have played down concerns these are a prelude to a large-scale seismic event.

The Delhi-NCR region has several fault lines that generate earthquakes but also feels the impact of quakes from as far away as Nepal and Afghanistan’s Hindukush Mountains.

Nevertheless, BK Bansal, the Director of the National Center for Seismology, stressed this week that it was necessary to take precautionary measures.

Other earthquakes in recent days include a 4.3 magnitude event that hit Diglipur in the Andaman and Nicobar islands at 2.17 am on Wednesday and a 3.9 magnitude quake that hit 14 km north of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir at 8.16 am Tuesday.

With input from ANI, PTI