Rumbling early morning quake jolts Capital awake

Capital's Monday morning tremble

- Paras Singh

NEW DELHI: A magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck Delhi early on Monday morning, uprooting a decades-old tree in a marshy lake and sending panic-stricken residents into the streets, with citizen groups calling it a "warning bell" for the government.

The tremor, which hit at 5.36 am with its epicentre beneath Jheel Park in Dhaula Kuan in southwest Delhi, lasted only a few seconds but was felt sharply across the National Capital Region (NCR) due to its shallow depth of 5km.

"The tremors were so sharp that for a moment I believed the house would collapse," said Om Prakash, 43, who runs a shop adjacent to the DDA park. "It ended abruptly by the time we could figure out anything. If the quake had lasted longer, everything would have flattened."

Residents reported hearing loud noises before and during the earthquake.