NEW DELHI: A strong tremor lasting 5-6 seconds shook the capital at 11.28pm on Wednesday, forcing residents to run out of their houses in various parts of the city. The Met department said the quake measured 4.2 on the Richter scale and its epicenter was Sonipat in Haryana.

There were no reports of damage to life and property in NCR, neither did national or global monitoring agencies immediately report any major earthquake in the region.

“At first I heard a muffled sound — like a subdued explosion — and then felt the quake for many seconds,” said Gulshan Luthra of Gurgaon. “All the furniture in my house started shaking just as we finished dinner,” said Vinod Kapoor , a resident of east Delhi.

People working late hours, including in call centres, reported a strong jolt which even knocked out the electricity for a while. As the news broke on TV and the internet, anxious calls and tweets began pouring in from other cities.

The tremors were felt across north India, including Kashmir and Uttarakhand.

