A 4.9 quake in Chamoli is felt in the hills and in Delhi

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Chamoli district in Uttarakhand at about 10:24 pm on Tuesday, 6 October. The National Centre for Seismology put the epicentre in Chamoli and the depth at about 13 kilometres. The centre confirmed the event around 10:40 pm. Shaking was reported in Bageshwar, Pithoragarh, Champawat, Rudraprayag and Chamoli, and residents also felt it in Bhowali, Haldwani, Khatima, Rishikesh, Gopeshwar and Badrinath. Parts of Delhi and the National Capital Region noticed it as well.

No casualty or damage figure was attached to the first bulletin. A 4.9 at 13 kilometres is strong enough to move furniture and to be felt far down the plain, and it is below the range in which Himalayan quakes usually destroy towns. Depth is why the same magnitude can feel different: a shallow break throws more of its energy into the surface. Thirteen kilometres is shallow enough for Delhi to notice and deep enough that Chamoli did not, on the first night, report a collapse.

Chamoli sits in the central Himalaya, on the belt that produced the 1999 Chamoli earthquake, a larger event that killed more than a hundred people and damaged hill towns across Garhwal. Tuesday's quake is not that earthquake repeated. It is a moderate shock on the same structural front, recorded by the same national network, and felt on the same axis toward the capital. The 1999 comparison is a location fact. It is not a forecast.

The centre's distinction between magnitude and intensity is the part worth keeping when social feeds start posting single numbers. Magnitude is the energy at the source, here 4.9. Intensity is what a person feels in a given town, and it changes with distance, depth and the ground under the building. A resident in Rishikesh and a resident in Sarojini Nagar did not share an intensity. They shared a origin time.

What was not in the Tuesday night note, and still matters for a hill district, is slope. Chamoli's roads and pilgrimage towns sit under cut hills. A quake that does not fell a house can still drop a shoulder of road. The morning check is the one the seismology bulletin cannot make: whether the Badrinath road, and the smaller links through Gopeshwar, stayed open. Until that report exists, the public record is the time, the depth, the 4.9, and a list of towns that felt it from the Garhwal ridges to Delhi.