Dhami inquires about quake situation in Uttarakhand, instructs officials to exercise vigilance

Dehradun (Uttarakhand) [India], March 22 (ANI): Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Wednesday reviewed the situation after an earthquake hit parts of north India late on Tuesday.

The chief minister inquired about the situation from Dr Ranjit Kumar Sinha, Secretary of Uttarakhand Disaster Management. “The Chief Minister instructed the Disaster Management Secretary to inform about the situation after getting information from all the districts and to exercise vigilance,” an official statement said.

People in north India including in Delhi and adjoining areas felt earthquake tremors on Tuesday evening with many people rushing out to open spaces as a precautionary measure.

National Centre for Seismology said that an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 on the Richter Scale hit 133km SSE of Fayzabad, Afghanistan on Tuesday.

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake rocked Afghanistan and parts of India as well, including the capital New Delhi, adding that the quake’s epicentre was 40 kilometres south-southeast of the Afghan town of Jurm.

Earlier Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday inaugurated the “International Conference on Use of Modern Technology for Disaster Management” in Dehradun. He said that the Himalayan states are extremely vulnerable to disasters and their impact.

“Earthquakes, landslides, cloud bursts, forest fires etc natural calamities keep on happening here, due to which it is natural to cause huge loss of people and money. The only way to deal with these disasters is a proactive approach. The outbreak of disasters can be minimized only by a proactive approach,” he said.

The Chief Minister also said that along with disasters, earthquakes are a big threat to our state, to avoid such disasters, special attention has to be paid towards the use of modern technology for pre-disaster warnings.