With a brutal sell-off engulfing Sensex and Nifty, the benchmark indices have lost more than 20 percent from their recent high scaled in January, formally entering the bear market territory.

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A bear market is a condition when a security price falls 20 percent or more from its recent high.

As of this writing, the Sensex is down 21.96 percent from its recent high of 42,273.87 hit on Jan 20, 2020, while the Nifty is down 22.35 percent from the all-time high of 12,430.50.

The sell-off in global risky assets has led the Nifty to breach 9,700 levels and slip to its lowest level since September 2017, while the Sensex was trading at a 24-month low.

The Midcap index also declined to the lowest level in 38 months.

All sectoral indices were trading at 52-week lows. Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Metals indices bled the most with 10 percent cuts followed by Nifty Realty and Nifty Media falling 9 percent each.

Among stocks, all Nifty stocks were in the red, down 2-17 percent.

The Indian market crash has been triggered by fears of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused stocks globally to fall.

But analysts meanwhile have maintained that it would be difficult to predict where the market will find its bottom.

"Such meltdowns can last longer than anticipated," Jai Bala of cashthechaos.com told CNBC-TV18 in an interview. "The market is falling with strong momentum."

He added, however, that the Nifty now has support at the 9,300-9,400 zone, meaning that a breach of those levels could trigger a further downmove.

Bala added that investors can expect a temporary bounceback before the downtrend resumes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic but added that it's not too late for countries to act.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump announced measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office at the White House on early Thursday morning. Trump announced that barring the United Kingdom, the United States has suspended all travel from Europe for 30 days from starting Friday.

The Indian rupee slipped in the early trade on Thursday. It opened lower by 61 paise at 74.25 per dollar versus previous close 73.64.