Residents of many parts of the city were awakened by a mild tremor around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The tremor, which occurred following an earthquake that struck near Nicobar Islands, lasted 10 to 20 seconds, triggering panic in some localities.
Areas including Aminjikarai, Choolaimedu, Koyambedu, Vadapalani, Ashok Nagar, Chintadripet, T.Nagar, Royapettah, Santhome and Thiruvanmiyur reported tremor.
“We did not realise it until our neighbours rang the bell. The entire apartment was emptied in a few minutes. We ran out of our houses,” said Renuka Chandran, an Ashok Nagar resident.
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K.Rishi, an eight-year-old, had a fall as he tripped over his brother while running out of their third-floor apartment in Besant Nagar.
“We were watching television when we felt the tremor. There was a huge crowd outside our apartment and in the commotion, my son was injured,” says his mother Venidevi.
While some in a few residential areas woke up to tremor and rushed outdoors, those in some parts of the city said they did not experience any tremor.
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Regional Meteorological Department officials said the earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 Richter scale struck at 12.56 a.m. off the west coast of Nicobar Islands.
A tsunami warning and watch was issued for India and soon withdrawn as the “sea-level readings indicated that a significant tsunami was not created,” according to the website of Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.
The tsunami warning issued for the brief period, however, failed to deter the weekend crowd at the Marina and Elliots beaches, which were throbbing with life on Sunday evening.
Police sources said nobody was evacuated from the beach in the early hours of Sunday.