At least 96 people were injured and cracks appeared in several buildings across the State as an earthquake of moderate intensity having a magnitude of 5.8 on the Richter scale rocked almost all the districts in Odisha on Wednesday at around 9.52 pm, said Special Relief Commissioner PK Mohapatra.
Talking to mediapersons here on the post earth quake situation, Mohapatra said the epicentre of the quake was reported in the Bay of Bengal, about 310 km south-east of Seismological Observatory, Bhubaneswar.
Stating that the tremor was felt almost in all the districts, the SRC said that there was a sigh of relief when the INCOIS, Hyderabad and the Tsunami Warning Centre of the Government, after due evaluation, reported that there was no tsunami threat.
The SRC sources said there was no report of any major damages due to the earthquake. However, reports of some cracks in the buildings at different places were reported from district Collectors. However, most of the people sustained injuries due to panic in the process of evacuation, he said.
Thousands of people who moved out of their houses in the night in panic, however, spent several hours under the open sky fearing that the earthquake might reoccur again.
Mohapatra said that the messages of earthquake were promptly circulated among the people mostly through the electronic media advising people not panic. The State Emergency Operation Centre operating in the office of SRC also established contact with the Emergency Centers in the district level and Collectors concerned were asked to obtain report on the situation and take required measures on emergency basis.
As per the report of the Director of Heath Services, 93 people were treated for minor injuries at various hospitals in the State and later discharged while two people were being treated at the Capital Hospital here for major injuries.
While 37 people were treated at the Capital Hospital here, 36 were treated at the Jagatsinghpur district, 21 in Cuttack district and two people in Jajpur district.