4.9 quake jolts city

No loss of life or property was reported.

Commenting on whether Saturday morning tremors had any relation to the earthquake in Indonesia two days ago,Mohanan said,“Prima-facie,I see no relation between the earthquakes in Indonesia and other places with this one. What makes the Koyna dam area a known source of earthquakes are faultlines 10-15 km beneath the earth’s surface. And Koyna can quake irrespective of earthquakes taking place anywhere in the world.”

He said that at 4.9 Richter Scale,the shocks could have been recorded by seismographs located as far as Chennai.

The Koyna region that falls in earthquake zone-4 witnesses minor shocks of intensity of 2.1- 2.2 almost once or twice a month,which are not felt by people but are recorded by seismographs,said Mohanan.

“There has always been an argument as to whether it is the huge water body at Koyna dam that causes these tremors. But in my opinion,the water body is too small compared to large faultlines located 10-15 km below earth’s surface and run through hard,base rock,” he added.

Minutes after the quake Twitter,Facebook and other such social networking sites were flooded with near realtime narrations of shocks. While Amitabh Bachchan tweeted from Mumbai,students and net-savvy citizens spread the news rapidly though mass media. “Did u feel it? I just felt vibrations. No seriously what are people talking about,” tweeted one Yogesh Gandhi. “Tremors were felt in Pimpri-Chinchwad,Pune,Satara,Nashik,Konkan,and almost all parts of Maharashtra,” tweeted one Atul Bafna.