Third quake in 30 days in Delhi; same epicentre

NEW DELHI: An earthquake of 3.4 magnitude occurred on Sunday afternoon around 1.45pm near Sonia Vihar, almost the same location as a previous earthquake of 3.5 magnitude on April 12.

According to officials at the National Center for Seismology (NCS) helpline, people called and reported tremors from near the epicentre in Sonia Vihar.

The location coordinates of the event is latitude 28.7 N and longitude 77.2 E, depth 5km. Seismologists said it’s too early to say why there is another earthquake with the same epicentre in just over a month.

“There are many faults in and around Delhi. There is the Sohna fault, and Mathura and Mahendergarh faults, which can contribute to earthquakes. There are several lineaments (an expression of an underlying geological structure such as a fracture) also. One lineament could have activated other lineaments. But we need to refine our recordings and findings to see what happened,” said AP Pandey, a seismologist at NCS.

The location coordinates, according to NCS for the previous earthquake was also latitude 28.7 north and longitude 77.2 east, depth 6.5km. It’s not unusual for epicentre of these relatively small earthquakes to be in Delhi and neighbouring Haryana, seismologists had said. But in April, the experience was much more intense for people in Delhi because of less noise associated with traffic movement owing to the ongoing lockdown.

An NCS official said the cause of the quakes will be investigated.

This was the third earthquake in the national Capital in 30 days -- the previous ones had occurred on April 12 and 13.