Report by Shreya Agarwal
On 21st March, an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale hit Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Northern India, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan.
The epicentre of the earthquake was in Jurm, Afghanistan and the depth of the earthquake was 156 km, as reported by the National Centre of Seismology in India.
The earthquake occurred mainly in the regions surrounding the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan which experiences frequent seismic activities and is highly prone to strong earthquakes.
It occurred at 10:17 pm Indian Standard Time (2217 hours IST). The Indian states which experienced the tremors are Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi-NCR, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab.
The region has, before and after this major quake, been experiencing mid-level quakes of magnitude 2.5 (the lowest level of quake that is reported) to 5.8.
The other region that has experienced mid-level quakes this week is Western Chile.
Image credit: Twitter handle of National Centre of Seismology i.e. NCS_Earthquake
