No casualties reported as 5.5-magnitude quake hits near Islamabad

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake struck near Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Saturday afternoon, while tremors were also felt in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from another earlier quake.

The earthquake in Pakistan measured 5.5 on the Richter scale and occurred at 12:30pm, according to the National Seismic Monitoring Centre (NSMC). It further said the quake struck at a depth of 12 kilometres, with its epicentre located 60km northwest of Rawalpindi.

However, according to the United States Geological Survey, the quake measured 5.0 on the Richter scale and had a depth of 39.2km.

There are no immediate reports of any damages from the earthquake.

A  correspondent in Islamabad reported that people gathered outside buildings after experiencing the tremors.

Meanwhile, a separate 4.3-magnitude earthquake also jolted the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border region about 35 minutes earlier, the NSMC said.

It added that the 11:54am quake had an epicentre with a depth of 88km.

Parts of KP — including Shangla, Swat, Mardan, Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra and Kohistan — felt the tremors of that quake, according to a Dawn.com correspondent who noted that jolts in KP and Islamabad were felt at different times.

In the past 24 hours, there have been worldwide 1,600 quakes of magnitudes up to 6.1:

• 1 quake above magnitude 6
• 4 quakes between magnitude 5 and 6
• 26 quakes between magnitude 4 and 5
• 112 quakes between magnitude 3 and 4
• 370 quakes between magnitude 2 and 3
• 1,087 quakes below magnitude 2 that people normally don't feel.