Scare in J-K after 6.7 Richter jolt

Jammu and Kashmir, still struggling to come to terms with the October 8 earthquake which brought death and destruction never seen before, wa...

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Jammu and Kashmir, still struggling to come to terms with the October 8 earthquake which brought death and destruction never seen before, was jolted again early today.

People fled their homes when a strong aftershock—it measured 6.7 on the Richter scale—shook the region at 3.17 am. The Meteorological Department Director C L Ram said the quake was not related to the October 8 killer quake but part of the aftershocks of the November 27 earthquake along Iran’s southern coastline.

‘‘The epicentre of today’s quake is 400 miles away in the Hindu Kush mountains of north-east Afghanistan and has no relation to the Kashmir quake,’’ Ram told The Indian Express. The frequency of the aftershocks of the Kashmir quake, he said, had come down considerably. ‘‘They are now fewer and far between. Besides, even their intensity has considerably diminished. This means that the energy of the quake has now by and large dissipated,’’ Ram said.

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But the pre-dawn jolts spread panic across the state. With temperatures down to 5 degrees Celsius, concerns are high. ‘‘We thought there would be a repeat of the October 8 earthquake. Our shelter rocked and the tin sheets creaked. I grabbed my children and shouted to my parents to run for cover. We all rushed outside,’’ recalled Muhammad Iqbal, an engineer in Kamalkote.

‘‘Everywhere, people were crying, scared that the worst was still to come.’’

Despite the strong tremors, there were no reports of any major damage. ‘‘We have not received any report of major damage from any area,’’ Uri’s Relief Commissioner B A Runiyal told The Indian Express. ‘‘I went across the area this morning. People are scared, but life and property is safe,’’ he said.

‘‘All of us are living in tin sheds or tents. There are no stone and brick houses left to collapse,’’ pointed out Naseer Ahmad Wani of Uri.

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From the interiors though, there were reports of houses developing cracks. ‘‘The fissures on the walls of our house have widened,’’ said Bashir Ahmad, a resident of Mohalla Jalal Sahib, Baramulla. In Kupwara in north Kashmir, some houses have toppled but there has been no loss of life.