Tremor shakes parts of country
A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake, with its epicentre 84 kms below the earths surface, in Myanmars Chauk, rocked different parts of the country, including the city, yesterday afternoon. As the epicentre was located about 526 kms south-east of Dhaka, there was no damage in the capital and other parts of the country.The same fault near south-eastern Bangladesh had caused a mild tremor with a magnitude of 5.3 on the Richter scale, on Tuesday.The tremor that was felt at 4.34 pm, yesterday, however, caused panic among people in the capital. Buildings, especially the high rises, swayed for a few seconds, sending people out of their homes to the streets.
People started screaming, particularly women and children, as they rushed out in fear, thereby causing some minor injuries, witnesses reported, including our Chittagong correspondent Shamsuddin Ilius.
Even though the south-eastern port city of Chittagong is located close to Myanmar, there were no reports of casualties or damage. Earlier, warnings had been given by geologists both at home and abroad that Bangladesh shares the same fault line below the earth with Myanmar, and the plate was gathering energy because the Indian and the Burmese plates had locked horns.
