6.4-magnitude quake hits Southern California: USGS
Los Angeles: A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Southern California on Thursday at 10:33 am (17:33 GMT) near the Searles Valley in San Bernardino County, the United States Geological Survey said.
The shallow quake struck at a depth of 5.4 miles (8.7 kilometers) in the vast desert region, lasting multiple seconds with residents as far away as Los Angeles saying they felt the tremor.
It is not yet clear if the earthquake caused major damage, but USGS seismologist Rob Graves said that "this earthquake is large enough that the shaking could have caused damage."
The San Bernardino County Fire Department reported no injuries on Twitter, but stated that "buildings and roads have sustained varying degrees of damage."
It added that there were multiple "buildings with minor cracks; broken water mains; power lines down; rock slides on certain roads. No injuries/fires."
"We will continue having a lot of aftershocks," CalTech seismologist Lucy Jones told a press conference, adding that dozens had already occurred and that some may be as strong as magnitude five.
Los Angeles International Airport said that runways were unharmed, with operations continuing as normal.
The city's police reported on Twitter that they had not "received any reports of damage or calls for service within the City of Los Angeles related to the #earthquake."
While California is the most-populous state in the US, the quake was located in a sparsely populated portion of the Mojave Desert.
Jones added that there is a small possibility that this quake was the prelude for a larger tremor.
"There is about a one-in-20 chance that this location will be having an even bigger earthquake within the next few days, that we have not yet seen the biggest earthquake of the sequence," she said.
Celebrities in Los Angeles were quick to react to the trembling.
"Been living in Los Angeles all my life," filmmaker Ava DuVernay wrote on Twitter. "That was the longest earthquake I've ever experienced. Not jerky. Smooth and rolling. But it was loooong.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
