An earthquake of mild intensity, measuring 2.7 on the Richter Scale, hit Karnataka's Chikkaballapur district on Wednesday, January 5, the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said. The tremors were felt in Shettigere, Addagal, Beeraganahalli, Gollahalli, Bogaparti villages for three seconds in the wee hours, according to authorities.
However, the villagers claimed that they felt the tremors thrice. Most of the villagers spent the night outside their houses. Walls of many houses were damaged, the villagers claimed. The villagers said that things kept on shelves inside the houses fell, after which they ran out of their houses.
On December 22, 2021, two earthquakes of magnitude 2.9 and 3.0 were recorded in Chikkaballapur. According to A Jagadeesh who is a seismologist at KSNDMC, the recent earthquakes were caused by heavy floods that the district experienced. “Chikkaballapur is a drought prone district and there hasn't been much rain in the past 30-35 years. In 2021, there have been heavy floods. When there is so much rain suddenly, water enters fractured zones in the ground about 10 km deep and loose rocks start moving. This causes the earthquake,” he said.
Jagadeesh added that there were no casualties as a result of the earthquake. However, he stated that some houses built using bricks and mud instead of concrete had developed cracks during the previous earthquakes.
“For earthquakes of such low magnitude, usually there isn't any damage caused. Till now we have seen a few earthquakes up to magnitude 3.6 on the Richter Scale and there has not been any damage reported. However in Chikkaballapur, there is a lot of mud construction implying that they use mud on the bricks instead of using concrete. Usually such houses suffer damage when an earthquake with more than 1.5 magnitude is recorded. In cement constructions there will be no damage. However, in such mud houses, we did see some damage after the previous earthquakes,” Jagadeesh stated.
The residents need not be fearful during an earthquake and need to come out of the buildings and remain in the open until the tremors are over in case there are future occurrences of earthquakes, Jagadeesh said.