Arunachal Pradesh's Bichom district saw the ground shake mildly on Tuesday morning, jolting some early risers before sunrise fully broke over the region. It was the latest in a run of tremors recorded this week across the wider region, following quakes in Afghanistan and Tibet in the preceding days.
Magnitude, Depth And The Exact Time
According to the National Center for Seismology (NCS), the tremor measured 2.9 on the Richter scale and struck at precisely 5:44:15 am. The quake's epicenter was traced to 27.540 degrees north latitude and 92.817 degrees east longitude, at a depth of roughly 10 kilometres below the surface. Based on these coordinates, the source of the shaking is believed to lie close to the Tawang area.
Details of the tremor also surfaced on ANI's post on X, which carried an update shortly after the quake struck.
Afghanistan Recorded A Stronger Quake A Day Earlier
A day before the Bichom tremor, Afghanistan had already been shaken by a stronger quake early Monday. The NCS put its magnitude at 4.1 on the Richter scale, with the event occurring at 5:36 am. Unlike the shallow Bichom quake, this one originated far deeper, at roughly 130 kilometres beneath the ground. Quakes that form at such depth tend to spread their tremors across a much wider stretch of territory, which is why they can be felt in several places at once.
Tibet's Thursday Quake Left No Reports Of Damage
Even before the Afghanistan event, Tibet had recorded a bigger tremor of magnitude 5.0 on Thursday afternoon, at 1:46 pm, the NCS said. That quake's focus sat about 14 kilometres underground, with its epicenter fixed at 31.479 degrees north latitude and 80.370 degrees east longitude. So far, no loss of life or damage to property has come to light from that particular quake.
What Actually Makes The Ground Shake
An earthquake is essentially a sudden burst of vibration on the earth's surface, triggered by movement deep within the planet. The outer crust of the earth is broken into several massive slabs known as tectonic plates, and these slabs are constantly, if slowly, shifting. When two plates collide, slide past one another, or get forced under or over each other, enormous stress builds up along their edges. Eventually that pent-up stress becomes too much to hold, and it is released all at once in the form of a shock. That sudden release is what makes the ground tremble and is felt by people as an earthquake. This process repeats constantly across the globe, which is why monitoring agencies such as the NCS track quakes of varying magnitudes on a near-daily basis, most of them too mild for anyone at the surface to even notice.
Taken together, the three quakes logged within a matter of days, in Bichom, Afghanistan and Tibet, show just how often seismic activity is being picked up by monitoring networks across this Himalayan and trans-Himalayan stretch of Asia.
