A strong earthquake hit Assam in northeastern India early Wednesday, damaging buildings, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, residents said.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was of magnitude 6.0 with an epicentre in a hilly region near India's border with Bhutan. But the tremor and aftershocks were felt hundreds of kilometres away in the northern state of Bengal.

The quake badly shook Tezpur, a city of 100,000 people, about 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the epicentre. Residents said many people poured onto the streets and some buildings were damaged.

Even in the state capital, Guwahati, about 150 kilometres (95 miles) to the south, the quake shook buildings and left cracks in walls. Residents said at least two big aftershocks were felt.

The USGS said the quake hit at a relatively shallow depth of 29 kilometres (18 miles) at 0221 GMT in hills just north of Dhekiajuli, a town in a tea-growing district of northern Assam.

The Himalayan region is regularly hit by big earthquakes. A 1950 quake killed about 4,800 people in Assam and in Tibet.

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

Tweet

Magnitude 4 earthquake rates may forecast larger future earthquakes
Washington DC (UPI) Apr 19, 2021
A new forecasting model suggests an uptick in the frequency of magnitude 4 earthquakes along certain faults can predict large earthquake events of magnitude 6.7 or larger. A few years ago, while studying seismic patterns along California's most active fault lines, a team of researchers led by Boston College seismologist John Ebel identified several faults that hosted an average of at least 0.5 magnitude 4 earthquakes per year from 1997 to 2016. Researchers estimated the next major earthq ... read more