Monday morning alarm wakes up NCR

GURGAON/NOIDA: A shallow 4.0-magnitude earthquake jolted people from their sleep before dawn on Monday, sparking panic and triggering residents to rush out of their flats in highrises and houses onto safer ground below.
Many said they felt a thud around 5.36am, followed by strong tremors that shook large furniture and set off car alarms.
Seismologists said the earthquake was not of a very high magnitude, but its depth of just around 5km, caused stronger reverberations. The epicentre was Dhaula Kuan in New Delhi, according to the National Centre for Seismology.
"My bed started shaking. I had never felt anything like this before. Before I could react, people in my apartment complex started panicking and leaving their homes. It felt as if someone had barged into my home. I couldn't go back to sleep after the tremors," said Manoj Babbar, who lives in Gurgaon's Sector 70.
Dr Pooja Trar, a resident of Sector 21 in Gurgaon, said she thought the windows in her house had cracked.
"It seemed like a heavy load had fallen on the roof that shook the entire building. I realised later that it was an earthquake," she said.
Dhruv Bansal of DLF-2 said he was sleeping at the time and thought his house would collapse. "I have never felt this intensity before," he said.
"I woke up to my bed shaking. At first, I thought it was a dream, but then I heard my neighbours rushing outside. It was a terrifying few moments," said Anurag Verma, who lives in Ghaziabad's Indirapuram.
Those who were up and about, preparing for the day, described the tremors as "a loud rolling sound, similar to trains passing by".
"My ceiling fan started swinging, and the doors creaked loudly. My first instinct was to check on my children," said Priya Sharma, a resident of Sector 62 in Noida.
Leela, who lives in Pan Oasis Society in Noida's Sector 70, said she was making breakfast for her children when the earthquake struck.
Sadhna, who works in Gurgaon, said she was making tea when it happened over a few seconds. "The kettle rattled all of a sudden and tea spilled on to the kitchen counter," she said.
"I was awake when my daughter and I suddenly heard a loud noise. For a moment, I thought my daughter was shaking the bed in her sleep, but when I looked, she was still sleeping. I panicked and searched online, and only then I realised that it was an earthquake," said Shivangi Jha, a resident of Sector 10A, Gurgaon.
In Sector 85, Vikrant Srivastava said he told his family to rush downstairs from their apartment complex.
"By the time we got downstairs, it had already stopped. I noticed that residents have been posting on various groups about the earthquake," he said.
Though there was panic, officials said neither any casualties nor severe property damage was reported on Monday.
But the tremors ignited concerns about NCR's seismic vulnerability. Part of the northern plains, the region's proximity to a faultline, where the Indian tectonic plate pushes up to the Eurasion plate, makes it prone to earthquakes.
Delhi-NCR is placed in seismic zone IV, the second highest category for areas prone to earthquakes on a scale.
But experts from the National Seismology Centre (NSC) said that Monday's tremors were not caused by movement of tectonic plates, but by "normal faulting".
NCS head OP Mishra told news agency PTI that this 'faulting' is the movement of ground that is linked to presence of underground water or past river water deposits that weaken rocks.
"This was a wake-up call, literally and figuratively. We need to be better prepared for a stronger earthquake in the future," said Ramesh Gupta, a civil engineer from Noida.
By morning, social media was flooded with posts from NCR residents. "I didn't need my alarm today. The earthquake did the job," wrote an X user.