page_title: Latur district
section_title: Latur Earthquake of 1993
hierarchical_section_title: Latur district / Latur Earthquake of 1993
caption_attribution_description: English: Latur District political map
context_page_description: Latur district is a district in Maharashtra state of India. Latur city is the district headquarters and is the 16th largest city in the state of Maharashtra. The district is primarily agricultural. Urban population comprises 25.47% of the total population.
context_section_description: Latur had a devastating, though only midly severe, earthquake on 30 September 1993 resulting in a huge loss of life. The earthquake measured only 6.3 on the Richter scale but more than 30,000 people were estimated to have died mainly due to poor construction of houses and village huts made of stones which just collapsed on people who were fast asleep in early morning hours. It struck southern Marathwada region of Maharashtra state in central-western part of India and affected Latur, Beed, Osmanabad and adjoining districts about 400 km south-east of Mumbai (Bombay). It was an intra-plate earthquake. Latur was almost completely destroyed and life came to a standstill. The earthquake's focus was around 12 km deep - relatively shallow causing shock waves to cause more damage. The number of lives lost was high as the earthquake occurred at 3.56 a.m. local time when people were fast asleep.
  After the earthquake, seismic zones were reclassified and building codes and standards were revised all over India.
caption: Latur District political map
exif: {}