Mumbai, March 23: Equity benchmark Sensex sank nearly 3,000 points to hit its lower circuit limit in morning session on Monday, triggering a 45-minute trading freeze as coronavirus-led lockdowns across the world stoked fears of a massive global recession.

After opening 2,718 points lower, the BSE barometer plunged 2,991.85 points or 10 per cent to 26,924.11. Similarly, the NSE Nifty fell 842.45 points, or 9.63 per cent, to 7,903.

As an automatic mechanism to freefall in the market, when an exchange plunges 10 per cent before 1 pm, trading is halted on stock exchanges for 45 minutes.

All Sensex components were trading in the red, with Axis Bank tanking up to 20 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, Hero MotoCorp and M&M.

According to traders, extreme lockdown measures taken by government in India and world over has put immense pressure in investor sentiment. As the virus cases climbed, the central and state governments in the country decided to lock down 75 districts from where Covid-19 cases have been reported to break the chain of transmission, and the Health Ministry said states would earmark hospitals to exclusively treat coronavirus patients.

Putting in place a tighter framework to curb high market volatility, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday announced revising market wide position limit for stocks in the derivatives segment, flexing dynamic price bands and other measures for one month starting from March 23.

These steps would limit short selling of shares as well as reduce volatility in individual stocks. Stock exchanges and regulatory officials, however, dismissed suggestions about curtailment of trading hours in wake of the pandemic. Bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul plunged up to 4 per cent, while Tokyo was trading with gains.

The rupee too plunged 92 paise against US dollar to 76.12. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil futures fell 3 per cent to USD 26.17 per barrel. The number of global Covid-19 infections has shot past 3,00,000. Worldwide fatalities topped 14,000. Cases in India rose to 390 over the weekend, according to the Health Ministry.