Rumbling early morning quake jolts Delhi awake

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.

- Paras Singh

NEW DELHI:

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 5 km.

"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. Atul Goyal, who heads URJA (United RWAs Joint Action), described it as "something striking against the building." "Everyone woke up with panic. We could hear a sharp sound as if something was striking against the house but it soon fizzled out. If it lasted longer or was more intense, things could have been drastically different," Goyal said.