Strong 5.6 quake jolts northern India

New Delhi : A strong 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit northern India late Monday night, the US Geological Survey said, rattling cities as far away as the capital New Delhi.

The quake struck at 10:33 pm local time (17:03 GMT) with the tremor's epicentre 35 kilometres (21 miles) northwest of the Himalayan town of Pipalkoti in northern India's Uttarakhand state, the USGS said.

An AFP reporter in Delhi, some 285 kilometres south of the epicentre, said minor tremors jolted the capital, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Across the northern border in neighbouring Nepal a deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Himalayan nation in 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying over half a million homes.