When Modi woke up Cabinet Secretary

He had asked Seth to give details about quake in Bay of Bengal

Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi could not help waking up Cabinet Secretary Ajith Seth when an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale hit the Bay of Bengal region on Wednesday night.

With the horrors of the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat still fresh in his mind, Modi wanted the top bureaucrat to give him details as to whether it had triggered a tsunami.

Modi was not in Delhi on that day. A day after his election as the leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party and appointment as prime minister, he had gone back to Gujarat for the appointment of his successor, Anandiben Patel, as new Gujarat chief minister. It was past midnight when Gujarat officials told Modi about the tremors, which were felt in National Capital Region as well as in the south, including Chennai and Visakhapatnam, and in Kolkata.

Aides said Modi was worried as to why a quake struck so close to the east coast of India, when the region was not prone to earthquakes.

After being woken up by him, the Cabinet Secretary informed Modi that the epicentre was 10 km below sea level, but there was no tsunami. The quake had struck at 9:51 pm, about 275 km south-east of the Paradip port in Odisha.

In the past, earthquakes have occurred mostly in the region around the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which is prone to quakes.

Since the January 2001 quake that flattened Kutch, Modi has had the Gujarat government implement advanced seismic warning systems across the state, and put in place a disaster relief management network to handle any emergency.

The Gujarat earthquake was a turning point in Modi's political career, as he had replaced Keshubhai Patel as chief minister in October 2001.

This followed complaints about the relief and rehabilitation measures of the state government, which underwent change after Modi became chief minister.