‘Quake not in subduction zone’

The earthquake in the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday night did not trigger a tsunami because it was not in the subduction zone and was well below the threshold level for generating such an event, experts said.

R.K. Chadha, senior scientist at National Geophysical Research Institute, said that since the earthquake was not in the Andaman-Nicobar-Java-Sumatra subduction zone, a tsunami did not follow. As it occurred in the central Bay of Bengal, where no thrusting mechanism took place, the likelihood of tsunami generation was nil.

The epicentre of the earthquake was 280 km southeast of Puri and the tremors were felt all along the coast. The seismological observatory at the NGRI had recorded the earthquake.