iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — An earthquake rattled central Oklahoma Sunday night, reportedly damaging multiple buildings in Cushing, about 50 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, and felt as far away as Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 7:44 p.m. The USGS initially measured the quake at 5.3 magnitude, but later revised the measure to 5.0.
According to the Cushing Fire Department, numerous buildings were damaged, but Cushing police said there were no reports of injuries.
The quake is the second to hit Oklahoma in less then a week, after a 4.5 magnitude earthquake struck with an epicenter near Pawnee.
There has been a spike in powerful earthquakes throughout the Midwest in recent years, which scientists say is linked to fracking.
The USGS recorded 1,010 earthquakes of a magnitude 3.0 or greater in the region last year, nearly three times as many as the 318 temblors of this magnitude in 2009. Oklahoma alone felt 619 quakes of a magnitude 2.8 or larger from January through June of this year.
The increase of high-magnitude earthquakes in the region has been tied to the surge in oil and gas operators’ use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are injected at high pressures into the earth to release oil and gas trapped inside the rock.
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