Bengaluru: The city witnessed a mysterious rumbling sound with vibrations around 1:30 pm on Wednesday. While many heard the noise, some around Whitefield area felt tremors and found windows rattling for almost five seconds.
Thereon, social media has been buzzing with puzzled users, who are referring to this noise as sonic boom, earthquake or an aeroplane crash. There has been no report of any damage so far.
iTWEET:All Bengaluru is wondering what that loud explosion just now was about!? My office windows rattled!! Any answers? #Bengaluru #Explosion
— Harish Bijoor (@harishbijoor) May 20, 2020
Did anybody else feel a loud rumble and vibrations for a few seconds in Bangalore around 1:25 pm? It sounded like an explosion. My windows shook and the neighbors came out on the streets looking surprised. #earthquake #bangalore
— Prakash Mishra (@pmishra1598) May 20, 2020
The Indian Air Force, however, has refuted these claims, indicating that it could be the result of “routine test flights that necessitate going supersonic at times.”
The noise was heard in Cooke Town, Vivek Nagar, Ramamurthy Nagar, Hosur Road, HAL, Old Madras Road, Ulsoor, Kundanahalli, Kammanahalli, CV Raman Nagar, Whitefield and HSR Layout in the city.
“The activity reported in Bengaluru is not due to an earthquake. The seismometers did not capture any ground vibration as generally happens during a mild tremor. The activity is purely a loud unknown noise,” Bengaluru Police Commissioner, Bhaskar Rao, tweeted.
The activity reported in Bengaluru is not due to an Earthquake. The Seismometers did not capture any Ground Vibration as generally happens during a mild Tremor. The activity is purely a loud unknown noise.
— Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (@KarnatakaSNDMC) May 20, 2020
Meanwhile, hashtags like #earthquake, #Bangalore, and #Aliens are trending on Twitter with theories and speculation about the incident.