3.1 magnitude quake jolts Uttarkashi, 40 laborers are trapped inside tunnel here for 5 days

An earthquake of magnitude 3.1 struck Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district during the wee hours of Thursday.

The jolts were felt at around 2:02 am and the earthquake had a depth of 5 km, the National Center for Seismology said. “Earthquake of Magnitude:3.1, Occurred on 16-11-2023, 02:02:10 IST, Lat: 31.04 & Long: 78.23, Depth: 5 Km ,Location: Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, India,” the NCS wrote on X.

According to the official sources, the tremors were felt in Uttarakhand on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

This earthquake occurred in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, where 40 laborers are stranded due to the collapse of an under-construction tunnel.

People started coming out of their homes and running to safe places after the tremors, reports said. According to the Indian Seismological Centre, the earthquake occurred at 02.02 am on November 16 and its intensity on the Richter scale was recorded at 3.1.

While giving information, District Disaster Management Officer Devendra Patwal said that information about the earthquake has been sought from all the tehsils of the district. At present there has been no news of any kind of damage. It is known that earlier earthquake tremors were felt in Uttarkashi on 3 November, the epicenter of which was in Nepal.

Incidentally on Sunday, an under-construction tunnel in Uttarkashi collapsed due to a landslide, after which 40 workers were trapped. Rescue operations are being conducted for 5 consecutive days to rescue the workers safely. Teams of Army, SDRF, NDRF are engaged in the rescue operation.

Heavy machines had been airlifted from Delhi to remove the debris and rescue the trapped labourers who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Uttarakhand. All efforts to rescue the trapped labourers have bot yielded fruits so far.