4.7-magnitude earthquake jolts Peshawar

• Quake's epicentre located in Hindu Kush mountains.
• Depth of tremors identified as 211 kilometres.
• Earthquake comes month after 5.3-magnitude tremors.
  

PESHAWAR: Residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's capital city on Wednesday were shocked by a mild earthquake whose intensity was recorded to be 4.7 on the Richter Scale. 

Providing details of the earthquake, the Seismological Centre said that the mild tremors were felt in Peshawar with the epicentre of the quake located in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountain range.

The depth of the earthquake was 211 kilometres, the statement added.

The tremors come around a month after a 5.3-magnitude hit Islamabad and parts of KP including Mardan, Swat, Nowshera, Swabi and North Waziristan.

Their epicentre was also located in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan at a depth of 230 kilometres. Coordinates were recorded at latitude 36.63 N and longitude 71.13 E.

Before that, two more quakes had hit KP, Azad Kashmir, Punjab, and parts of Afghanistan.

The first earthquake, measuring a magnitude of 5.5, hit several cities across northern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi on April 12, at a reported depth of 12 kilometres.

Cities of Punjab, including Attock and Chakwal, also reported tremors in the region. In KP, tremors were felt in Peshawar, Mardan, Mohmand, Swabi, Nowshera, Lakki Marwat, Lower Dir, Malakand, Shabqadar and other cities.

Days later, on April 16, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit several areas of KP, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Punjab, and parts of Afghanistan.

Earthquakes are not uncommon in Pakistan, as the country is situated on the boundary of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Large parts of South Asia are seismically active as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

However, it is the port city of Karachi that has been in the news recently due to persistent mild earthquakes which racked up to around 30 tremors in just a few days.

The quakes, as per Chief Meteorologist Aamir Haider, were occurring due to the Landhi Fault Line becoming active after several decades and undergoing a normalisation phase.