Mylaporeans felt the tremors of an earthquake that hit Indonesia at about 2 pm IST. The tremors were felt in areas of CIT Colony, Alwarpet, Mylapore and San Thome and in colonies off the Adyar river.
People staying at home came out of their houses and apartments to get to safety and exchanged their expereinces.
The tremors were mild but they carried on for at least 10 to 20 seconds. Those who were sleeping on the floor of their houses or on cots said they felt the gentle termor as furniture swung a bit.
The buzz spread through the seaside areas of San Thome and ForeShore Estate, the areas which were badly hit by the tsunami in 2004. As of now there has not been any official tsunami alert in the city.
Ramya a resident of C. P. Ramaswamy Road said that she was sitting and she suddenly felt every thing around her rotating.
“I thought I was feeling dizzy. I realised that it was an earthquake. The tremor was felt for atleast a minute,” she says.
Vinodhini a resident of Nattu Subburaya Street said that she felt her table move and thought her son was shaking it. “But I noticed even the photo frames on the wall were shaking. So I picked up my son and ran out of the house,” she added
Traffic police got to work on San Thome High Road as the news spread. Residents here said that traffic choked after it was redirected off the main road. Kutchery Road which is empty at this time of the day was choked with traffic, said photographer Saravanan.
By 3 pm, people who had stepped out of their houses went back as TV began to report that the quake was over but tsunami alerts had been sounded.
People from R A Puram and Mandaveli said they got inside their apartments after staying out for a few minutes.
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Photo captions (top): Residents of Rosary Church Street standing outside their homes;
Above (left to right): Students going home at Kutcheri Road; Residents of Nochi Nagar, San Thome sitting outside their homes;
Row 2 (left to right): Police diverting vehicles at Light House; Police control the traffic at The National Shrine of St. Thomas, San Thome.
On 11th April Wednesday around 2-15 PM in the afternoon I was attempting a NAP with my two grand children AKASH AGED 7 YEARS AND AKHILESH 4
Suddenly I experienced a tremor in the middle of the hall and checked up with my wife who noticed that the milk vessel was dancing on the oven.Almost all of US in the PRASNATHI AND MAheswwari Apts in the Vanandurai TM MAistry Street hurried out to the roads in safety.We got the news that TSunami has hit Indonesias island of SUmitra and that the measurement is almost 9 rector measurement technically.The panic struck Chennai and one of the important reasons is the Tamil Media hype and mainly the the presentation was both melodramatic and scaring.The English News channels on the other hand were more steady and tried to give information update on the Tsunami
moments with proper illustrations.NDTV HINDU does a great job on such times and presented NEWS very objectively.There was another SCARE that T would hit Chennai
at 5PM and panic gripped the people and fortunately the Disaster management disspelled it CALM was restored by late in the evening.It was a day of big drama and luckily it ended on a good note.A word of praise is due to the administaration which kept the situation under control.We are thankful to the Almighty for saving us from the TSUNAMI!