ABHI Awasthi was upstairs at his parents' house when the earthquake struck.
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A Bendigo resident for the past four years, Mr Awasthi was visiting his family in Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian state on the Tibetan border, when the building started to shake.
"I was on the third level of the house and my cousin she came and said 'are you feeling the same thing'," he said.
"I was sitting right next to a little aquarium and I could see the water in it going up and down."
Luckily no one was hurt but Mr Awasthi said the quake had given everyone a scare.
"Everyone was saying 'get out of the building' because we were on level three," he said.
The earthquake only lasted for about 60 seconds but was followed by another even bigger tremor about 20 minutes later and caused significant structural damage.
"Mainly it was damage to the property, the injuries were minor injuries but they were from rushing to safety rather than something falling onto them," Mr Awasthi said.
"The house is on concrete pillars so having the crack across where the pillars are (is a problem).
"It might be OK at the moment but if the same thing happened again at such a scale it will be very devastating."
Mr Awasthi arrived safely back in Bendigo at 2am yesterday.
"I did get a couple of emails from my colleagues just checking in how I'm doing," he said.
"It's actually good in the community we live in that even if you're not there people do care for you which is a great thing and I truly appreciate that."