Residents panicked after tremors were felt in several villages of the two districts on Sunday morning.

 The earth shook at many villages in Huliyar hobli of Chikkanayakanahalli, Tumakuru district, at around 6.45 am. People rushed out of their houses when they felt the tremors.

Some people attributed the tremors to the unabated mining in the border areas of Tumakuru and Chitradurga districts as also the digging of borewells in the region. They said the aerial survey conducted by the department of mines and geology had shown that the inter-district border region was prone to tremors due to the mining.

Chitradurga deputy commissioner M K Srirangaiah said the quake in the district measured 2 on the Richter scale in Chitradurga, Hosadurga and Hiriyur taluks. Cracks were noticed in the idols carved on the gopura of the Varadarajaswami temple in Kanchipura of Hosadurga taluk. Veerabhadraiah, deputy director of the department of mines and geology, said there was nothing to worry as it was a natural phenomenon due to the summer heat in the layers beneath the ground.