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All back to normal

Many thousands of people, mostly women and children, who had left home and were scattered in community parks or open spaces in fear of more jolts, returned home by 4.30pm. The initial exodus from offices created a little confusion and chaos on the roads, but the situation was back to normal soon.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, an official at Dubai Municipality said the traffic signalling network was intact and working as usual. The official revealed that the section had an emergency plan that can be activated immediately if required, and noted that the change in the pattern of traffic did not create much problem for the signalling network yesterday.

Also, according to reports from airports late afternoon, operations were on as usual without any disruptions to flights.

Information was, however, hard to come by for most people, and mobile messages from friends and relatives were the only source of news.

The meteorological offices in Sharjah and Dubai were not in a position to confirm the tremors, but were anyway flooded with calls from members of the public.

When contacted, weatherman in Dubai said there were reports, but the office cannot confirm the news. With no information being released by authorities concerned, speculation and rumour-mongering was hard to control and sure enough there were SMSs doing the rounds that a major jolt was expected later in the day.

• UAE