Gujarat hit with 5.7 Magnitude Earthquake

An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit Gujarat's Saurashtra region at 10:48pm, Thursday.

The quake was epicentred in Bhuj, which was hit by one India's worst quakes 10 years ago.

US Geological Survey reported that the quake was epicentred 38 km south of Junagadh and 126 km South-Southwest of Rajkot.

The Geological Survey also said that the depth of the quake was 15.5 km.

Rajkot, Porbandar, Jaitpur, Bhavnagar, and Talala were also hit.

Tremors were felt in Surat, Ahmedabad, Amreli, and Junagadh.

Tremors were also felt in Mumbai, a senior Met department official said.

"The epicentre of the earthquake which registered 5.3 on Richter scale was at Junagadh in Gujarat...tremors were felt here," director of Met Department at Mumbai, Rajeev Nair, told PTI.

The state was rocked by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake on January 26, 2001 leaving 20,000 people dead and causing widespread destruction with the worst-affected being the Kutch region.

This was an intraplate earthquake, one that occurred at a distance from any plate boundary where plate tectonics create most earthquakes, so the area was not well prepared. The event was the result of stored energy in a collision margin. The shock waves spread 700 km. 21 districts were affected and 600,000 people left homeless.

In 2001, the final death toll in Kutch was 12,290. Bhuj, situated only 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the epicenter, was devastated. Considerable damage also occurred in Bhachau and Anjar with hundreds of villages flattened in Taluka of Anjar, Bhuj & Bhachau. Over a million structures were damaged or destroyed, including many historic buildings and tourist attractions. The quake destroyed around 40% of homes, eight schools, two hospitals and 4 km of road in Bhuj and partly destroyed the city's historic Swaminarayan temple and historic fort as well Prag Mahal and Aina Mahal. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital with a population of 4.6 million, as many as 50 multi-storied buildings collapsed and several hundred people were killed. Total property damage was estimated at $5.5 billion and rising. The earthquake destroyed 60% of usable food and water supplies in Kutch.

Today, eyewitnesses said that there was utter chaos in Talala, where the entire city was plunged into darkness following a power outage caused by the quake.