BIDAR: The villagers of Hasanabad in Humnabad taluk of Bidar district spent a sleepless night on Saturday owing to what they claimed were low-frequency earthquakes between 1 am and 6 am.
Villagers said that they experienced these earthquakes at least four times in the wee hours of Saturday. As the panic spread, everybody trooped out of their houses and spent the night out in the cold, lighting up a few fires to stay warm. Some houses in the village were even damaged and have developed cracks, they said.
Humnabad tahsildar Devendrappa Pani and executive officer of the taluk panchayat Dr Govind Hasnabad heard the woes of the people and were told that these earthquakes were being experienced for the past one week. The earth was vibrating and sounds could be heard from the ground, they told the officers. The damage to the houses is minor in nature.
On contacting the Department of Mines and Geology, Pani was told that there were no earthquakes recorded on the Richter scale monitor. However, the monitor would not be able to detect minor earthquakes, he was told. Such minor disturbances and vibrations were common in villages where the limestone content is high in the earth and water levels are also significant as the chemical reaction would result in such vibrations, the tahsildar was told. There would be no danger from such phenomena, Pani was told.