Delhi could be devastated by strong quake

The massive earthquake of October 8 has seeded fear among residents in New Delhi’s new high-rise apartments. But experts say the real worry is the city’s patchwork of illegal homes.

Newspapers and television networks reported how thousands of residents of apartment blocks around New Delhi panicked after an earthquake that measured 7.6 on the Richter scale swayed the multi-storey buildings on Saturday.

But Subir Saha, director of New Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture, said the real danger to the country’s capital lay in the sprawling patchwork brick and mortar homes stacked almost back-to-back across the city.

“Every alternate year, an earthquake of moderate intensity strikes Delhi as it lies in a high seismic zone,