A strong earthquake struck eastern India in the hours before sunrise Monday, rattling that country and parts of four neighboring countries. There are unconfirmed reports of structural damage near the epicenter. The magnitude-6.7 tremor struck at 4:35 a.m. local time Monday (6:05 p.m. EST Sunday in the United States) near the city of Imphal in the Indian state of Manipur, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS website showed user-submitted reports of moderate to strong ground shaking from many locations in the far eastern part of India as well as parts of neighboring Bangladesh, which lies west of the quake’s epicenter. Lighter ground shaking was reported over a wide region as much as 1,000 km (620 miles) from the epicenter.
The shaking affected large parts of Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal, nations which also border India. The quake struck 55 kilometers (34 miles) below the earth’s surface. While farther below the earth’s surface than some notorious historical quakes, this temblor is still considered a shallow-focus earthquake. Shallow earthquakes tend to produce more violent shaking near the epicenter than deeper earthquakes of equal magnitude, but they tend to be felt over a smaller geographic area. FULL REPORT
