HYDERABAD: Residents of Borabanda have been facing mild tremors since the evening of Diwali, leaving them sleepless. Though the tremors have been occurring from Thursday evening, the frequency increased during the early hours of Saturday. The first tremor was felt at 12.30 am, then twice at 3.30 am, followed by three such tremors during the entire day.
While a similar kind of tremor was reportedly felt last year in the month of December, the residents of Borabanda had a frightening experience considering the frequency of the tremors.
“The sound was like dropping a huge stone on an empty building, the resound of that echo was the kind of sound that we heard last night. For a second we thought that there would be volcano erupting or earth splitting open,” said Md. Shakeel, a frightened resident of Indira Nagar.
“We know the vibrations of granite blasting, these came from within the ground, the sound was hollow and the earth shook for a couple of seconds before we came out of our home and waited until things settled,” another resident at Habeeb Nagar Phase 2 said.The tremors were felt at Indira Nagar, Habeeb Nagar Phase 2 and 3, Borabanda and Sai Baba Nagar. “We have spoken to the residents and there were no damages reported,” said Saidulu, Khairatabad Mandal Revenue Officer. Meanwhile, the Seismology department of the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) maintained that the magnitude was on the negative side of the Rector scale which was ‘nothing to worry’.
“There are negative magnitude micro earthquakes happening there which is nothing to worry. They are small swarm of activities,” said Sri Nagesh, Chief Scientist, Head Seismology observatory, NGRI.
“The subterrarian sound is very shallow where there is high granite exposure. And since the magnitude scale is open-ended, there are negative ratings recorded,” said Sri Nagesh.