Balochistan’s Quetta and its adjoining areas were hit by a moderate earthquake on Saturday. The tremors struck the provincial capital and other areas at around 11:09am.

The Pakistan Metrological Department said that the epicentre of the 4.6 magnitude earthquake was found 98km in the Hindu Kush Region, Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad were jolted after a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit the areas.

On January 4, the magnitude 7.6 quake rattled Ishikawa prefecture in Japan and killed over 70 people. More than 33,000 people have evacuated their homes and about 100,000 houses have no water supply, according to the local government

Last year, the Research Institute of Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGS) prediction related to an earthquake in Pakistan’s Chaman fault line caused concerns.

It’s the same institute that predicted the earthquake in Turkey in 2023.

In reaction, the caretaker Balochistan government had taken precautionary measures. “Earthquakes cannot be predicted in advance as to when and where an earthquake will occur. But natural disasters are an inevitable fact,” the information minister had said.

But experts from the PMD rejected such predictions, saying that earthquakes occur due to the movements of tectonic plates and predicting their movement deep underground was not possible “under the current scientific knowledge”.