Strong quake jolts Sikkim

GANGTOK: A powerful earthquake with a 6.8 magnitude rocked Sikkim and other parts in the northeast today leaving at least two dead and over 30 injured besides causing extensive damage to several buildings.

The epicentre of the quake - the biggest in two decades - was located at Mangan and Sakyong areas, over 50 km from Gangtok on Sikkim-Nepal border.

Tremors were felt in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, parts of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chandigarh and Delhi.

One of the two persons was killed at Singtham in East Sikkim district and another died just outside Singtham, Sikkim chief secretary Karma Gyatso said.

Several buildings developed major cracks in the state as personnel of the disaster management were deployed, Gyatso said.

Two buildings of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) collapsed in Pegong area though there was no immediate report of any casualty, a senior official said.

Three after shocks of 5.7, 5.3 and 4.6 magnitude on the Richter Scale were felt in the region within 30 minutes of the first quake.

"Tremors were felt between 30 seconds to one minute in some parts of Sikkim, including Gangtok," Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the ministry of earth sciences, said in Delhi.

Gyatso described it as "a massive earthquake. We have alerted the armed forced and the paramilitary personnel."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to Sikkim chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling and offered help in all possible ways, including availability of defence forces.

The Prime Minister directed cabinet secretary to call an emergency meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority, PMO sources said.

5 IAF planes pressed into action for relief operations. Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force - five each from Delhi and Kolkata - are being sent to assist in the relief and rescue operations, R K Srivastava, joint secretary, disaster management, in the home ministry, said.