Strong earthquake in Kashmir kills 2 persons and injures 100 (many dangerous aftershocks)

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Update May 2 - 07:59 UTC : At least 2 houses have collapsed after that a number of aftershocks did strike the Bhaderwah area.
- Schools remain closed today by order of the local government
- people spent the night in the open due to the fear of aftershocks
- Bhaderwah Valley has witnessed 15 tremors during the past 3 days (11 yesterday alone)
- Apart from the 2 killed people, nearly 100 people (among them 32 students) were injured and scores of buildings damaged in Doda and Kishtwar districts yesterday.

Update 16:45 UTC : USGS has after all published some additional details of this earthquake (probably because is became a deadly and damaging one). This was the MMI shaking in the different cities and villages nearby :
MMI V (moderate shaking) : Bhadarwah 13,000 people
MMI IV (light shaking) : Kishtwar 21,000, Doda 18,000, Ramban 7,000, Batoti 4,000 and Ramnagar 8,000
MI III (weak shaking) : Amritsar 1,092,000, Lahore 6,311,000, Srinagar 976,000, Gujranwala 1,384,000 and Kotli 640,000

Update 16:32 UTC : The images below have been taken after the earthquake in Bhaderwah. Click on this image to see them in full size. Images courtesy Photos by Rafiqi Aamir and Randhir Singh Rathore

Click on this image to see every picture in full size

Update 16:18 UTC : Minister for Rural Development Ali Mohammad Sagar has said that the government will extend all the support to the earthquake victims of the Doda and Kishtwar districts. The Minister has further said that the necessary instructions have been conveyed to the concerned District Administration to assess the loss caused to various structures, so that necessary relief can be provided to them at an earliest. Sagar has also sympathized with the affected people who have been injured as a result of the earthquake and assured them that all possible help would be extended to them.

The Indian Air Force came to the rescue of a 6-year old girl who was blocked inside debris of a collapsed building at Kishtwar. The condition of the girl was deteriorating continuously (brain concussion). To IAF has airlifted the girl to a GMC Hospital in Jammu.

Image courtesy Jammu Links

Update 14:40 UTC : A second killed person in Kuntawara area. The number of injured people rises to at least 69. 32 of them are students. Many hundred buildings, among them schools and hospitals, were damaged or destroyed in different parts of the region. Detailed numbers are not available yet.

Update 11:22 UTC : Meanwhile PCR Kishtwar told Kashmir Life that one girl, about 2 and half years old was seriously injured when a stone hit on her head near a stone quarry. “She was shifted to Kishtwar district hospital but she went into coma and now she is being shifted to Jammu hospital.”

Update 11:06 UTC : Hundreds of buildings in Chenab valley suffered damage.
- Earthquake triggered landslides which led to blocking of Kishtwar-Batote highway.

Twitter image courtesy @tawqeerhussain

Update 10:40 UTC : We unfortunately have to report that based on local well informed sources in K&J (Kashmir and Jammu) 1 person has been killed by the earthquake in Kishtwar.
An elderly villager, identified as Gusavun Ram, was killed when a bolder hit him while he was rushing out of his home. In another incident two school kids and one of their teachers were seriously injured in Putinag village of district Kistwar.

Update 10:27 UTC : A Facebook message from APINews reports that people from Bhaderwah town say that smoke (probably dust) is coming out of the mountain at the backside of Rainda village, a huge portion of the hill has blown up (ER : Typical for a landslide).

Rainda village - a lot of farming terrasses !

Update 10:12 UTC : Jammu and Kashmir experienced at least 6 aftershocks. 25 students and 2 teachers were at least injured, but this number will increase soon. While the roof of a school building collapsed in Baderwah injuring eight girl student, four students were injured when the building of their school collapsed in Kishtwar district. The children were being served mid-day meals when tremors hit the area.
- Most buildings in Chenab valley in J&K developed cracks.

Update 09:48 UTC : An avalanche alert has been issued for people living in the Bhaderwah-Chamba border belt after tremors shook the valley in Doda district on Wednesday. ZEE news is telling his readers "We have alerted people living in the foothills of the Ashapati glacier and Chater-gala hills in the Bhaderwah-Chamba border belt after three tremors shook the valley," police said. Over 10,000 inhabitants occupy the Thanhala belt in the foothills of the Ashapati glacier and the Chater-gala hills.

Update 09:35 UTC : “We have reports of many buildings having developed big cracks while some mud houses in Chatroo, Thathri, Bhaderwah areas have collapsed,” an official in Jammu said.
- 9 children reported injured, 5 in Gandoh Village and 4 in Bhot Village of Doda District
- We are mentioning also a M4.5 aftershock
- Chandigarh : slight damage to buildings like plaster cracks, bricks fall

Update 09:27 UTC : @imsabbah writes on twitter : My home damaged. School and kids okay, alhamdulillah. Damage reported in nearby villages as well; nothing major though.
- The Department of Earth Sciences India is stating in his report that : This earthquake is likely to cause slight to moderate damage to poorly built structures in and around the epicentral area. The earthquake focal mechanism is mainly Reverse Faulting (compression of 2 tectonic plates - South West to North East)

Update 09:13 UTC : 4 children were injured when a school building collapsed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district. The children were being served mid-day meals when tremors hit the area.
In another (twitter) massage : 7 children & 2 teachers reported injured in 3 different schools. Some damage to structures in the region of Doda, Gandoh & Badarwah.

Update 08:57 UTC : So far we have only reports of slight damage, but based on our broad experience, we know that it will take many hours before we will know whether landslides have made additional damage. We assume that Rescue and Relief teams will now visit the whole area to assess the situation. As it is daylight, we think that we will know more in 2 to 4 hours from now.

Update 08:33 UTC : The same area had a HUGE M7.8 (M8.6 following other sources) shallow earthquake on April 4, 1905 (our map shows April 4 1904 and has a slightly different epicenter location. (see also map below). This earthquake killed 19000 people !
The earliest large Indian earthquake for which a well documented instrumental magnitude (8.62) can be assigned. This was a great disaster; the loss of life is stated as 19,000. Instrumental data are not adequate to fix the epicenter. The meizoseismal area, including Kangra, was on the Tertiary rocks of the foothills of the Himalaya. An isolated area of high intensity, lower than that at Kangra but not approached elsewhere, included Dehra Dun, also in the foothills; this was separated from the Kangra meizoseismal area by about 100 miles. The available evidence does not support the idea of two separate earthquakes; it is more likely that there was a great linear extent of faulting.
Another similar report speaks of : Catastrophic earthquake in which a large number of people were killed in the region between Kangra and Dera Dun. The loss of life is stated as 19,000. The shock was felt with an intensity VII at Chamba, Patankot, Lahore, Nagan, Bajaura, Bilaspur and Kasauli. At Tir, Dera Dun and Saharanpur, VIII. The shock was felt in Quetta, with a radius of perceptibility of more than 1,200 km. Probable faulting extending from Kangra to Dera Dun.
ER : Of course the Magnitude of the 1905 earthquake was much much much stronger than today's earthquake. This information shows however that this is a dangerous area.

Bhaderwah, village closest to the epicenter (17 km following USGS) Image courtesy Savoshinde

Update 08:29 UTC : Telephone lines are jammed and it is very difficult to reach the people in the valley because of massive call traffic. ER : always the same story : people should not use voice lines but use SMS (text) messages instead. The capacity of SMS messages is far greater without voice calls than with voice calls.

Update 08:25 UTC : Reports reaching The Kashmir Life say that the intensity of the earthquake was so huge that people fled out of their homes. “WE were in the court room and it shock like hell and we fled out,” leading lawyer Asim Hashmi told the Kashmir Life. “The court developed cracks and I am told my home also has cracks.”
Details suggest that a number of houses were grounded in certain areas. The details are being collected. The losses are reported from Kishtwar, Bhaderwah and Doda. Not much of the details are right now available about what happened in the villages of the valley. Unconfirmed reports even said that a hospital that was newly built has suffered damage.

Update 08:22 UTC : Preliminary reports said several properties in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh have sustained damage but the same could not be confirmed.

Update 08:16 UTC : We invite our India - Pakistan readers to send us news of eventual damage if this would be reported in local media. You can send it to the following email : [email protected] (photos and videos are welcome too)

Update 08:09 UTC : According to new initial reports, about six buildings have suffered minor damages including two schools in Bhaderwah. As can be seen at our 08:06 update, Bladerwah is at only 17 km from the epicenter according to the USGS

Update 08:06 UTC : USGS has updated his data and now reports a Magnitude of 5.4 at a depth of 9.8 km. (we want to stress however that USGS is only one of the reporting agencies and the values are not always the most accurate ones). These are the new USGS epicneter parameters :
17km (11mi) NE of Bhadarwah, India
24km (15mi) SSE of Kishtwar, India
25km (16mi) E of Doda, India
65km (40mi) NNW of Chamba, India
268km (167mi) ESE of Islamabad, Pakistan

Update 08:03 UTC : Earthquake-report.com fears more and more for a grim outlook as this is a very mountainous populated region. LANDSLIDES are our main fear as well as the way villages have been build against the slopes as can be seen on the image below (image courtesy J D Pahadi).

Image courtesy JD Pahadi

Update 07:53 UTC : The situation looks grim as we could trace that damage / collapse of buildings was reported in the Chamba region of Himachal Pradesh and Kishawad in Jammu and Kashmir.

Update 07:36 UTC :
Population numbers in the epicenter area (based on the EMSC epicenter) :
130 km SE of Srīnagar, India / pop: 975,857
8 km S of Kishtwār, India / pop: 20,553

Update 07:34 UTC :Buildings shook in Delhi, offices and homes were evacuated in parts of Kashmir, and tremors were reported across the border in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan.

Update 07:30 UTC : EMSC has now changed the earthquake parameters from M5.3 at 60 km to M5.7 at 51 km.

Update 07:30 UTC : IMD (Meteorological Department of India) is reporting a very dangerous depth of 15 km. Let's hope that they are not right and that the hypocenter will be deeper. 4.4 million people are living within a radius of 100 km from the epicenter.
People in affected cities came out of their homes immediately after the tremors were felt.

Update 07:26 UTC : The I Have Felt It MMI's we are receiving from our readers are indicating a strong shaking in Northern India. As every earthquake is being felt differently by people, this earthquake gives us a bad feeling. We hope to bring as fast as possible some news from the epicenter area

Update 07:23 UTC : This earthquake proves another time that showing the different reported data is a plus as they are very contradictory at this moment. In Indie also a 5.7 Magnitude has been reported.

Update 07:19 UTC : USGS is however reporting a strong M5.7 earthquake at a depth of 10 km which would make this earthquake VERY dangerous. We think however that the intermediate depth will be more likely.

Update 07:12 UTC : We are relatively happy to tell you that it looks like it was (only) a M5.1 at 60 km depth

Update 07:04 UTC : We have still no clue what exactly happened, but most of our readers are coming from North India

Update : This earthquake is also felt in India and the UAE

17km (11mi) NE of Bhadarwah, India
23km (14mi) SSE of Kishtwar, India
24km (15mi) E of Doda, India
66km (41mi) NNW of Chamba, India
267km (166mi) ESE of Islamabad, Pakistan

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