A loud ‘thundering’ sound in several areas of Bengaluru on Wednesday afternoon triggered panic among the city residents. Some people took to Twitter, wondering if an earthquake had hit the Karnataka capital as doors and windows shook after the noise.
However, the officials ruled out the possibility of it being an earthquake. As per Srinivas Reddy, the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) director: “Earthquake activity will not be restricted to one area and will be widespread.”
“We have checked our sensors and there is no earthquake activity recorded today,” Bangalore Mirror mentioned Reddy as saying.
Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority Commissioner Manoj Rajan said it needed to be probed.
“We have 12 seismic monitoring centres in Karnataka but none have reported any seismic activity,” Rajan told PTI.
The loud sound was heard across Bengaluru from Kempegowda International Airport off Devanahalli in the north to Kengeri and Electronic City in the south.
Speculations were rife among the Twitterati that the ‘sonic boom’-like sound was due to a fighter jet. However, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has rejected the reports, saying it had nothing do to with the mysterious sound. Notably, “a sonic boom is a thunder-like noise a person on the ground hears when an aircraft or other type of aerospace vehicle flies overhead faster than the speed of sound,” says nasa.gov.
According to Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, no damage has been reported anywhere.
“We also got information… the sound was heard from the international airport to Hebbagodi, Bengaluru. No calls to 100 till now of any damage. We have also asked the Air Force Control Room to check if this was a flight or supersonic sound. The Bengaluru Police waiting for Air Force to confirm,” said Rao.
