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A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck an area near Oklahoma City on Friday night, followed by smaller earthquakes over the next several hours, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
No injuries were reported and damage appeared to be minimal, mostly items knocked over or shaken from shelves inside homes, according to Lincoln County Emergency Management Deputy Director Charlotte Brown.
“Nothing significant… nothing but a lot of scared people,” Brown said.
The earthquake occurred at 11:24 p.m. local time and was centered about 5 miles northwest of Prague, Oklahoma, about 57 miles east of Oklahoma City, the agency said.
Residents across the state, from Lawton to Enid to Tulsa, reported to the U.S. Geological Survey that they felt the shaking.
The initial quake was followed by at least eight smaller tremors through Saturday morning, ranging in strength from 2.5 to 3.4, according to the geological survey.
The earthquake was shallow — just 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey — and tremors that hit near the surface can make the shaking more intense.
At least six earthquakes, including two of magnitude greater than 4, were recorded near another Oklahoma City suburb in January. In April, a magnitude 4 earthquake was one of a series of six that struck the central Oklahoma town of Carney, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Prague in 2011, about 60 miles south of the site of the state’s strongest recorded earthquake in Pawnee, which recorded a magnitude of 5.8 in 2016.
Thousands of earthquakes have been recorded in Oklahoma in recent yearsmany of them related to the underground injection of wastewater from oil and natural gas extraction, particularly in what is known as the Arbuckle formation which includes the area around Prague.
The epicenter of Saturday’s earthquake was almost the exact location of the epicenter of the 2011 earthquake, according to Matt Skinner, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry in the state.
“This was one of the first areas where steps were taken” to limit wastewater injection, Skinner said.
“Disposal wells within 10 miles of the earthquake” should temporarily stop operating, Skinner said.
The corporate commission has ordered several producers to close some injection wells and reduce volumes at others as a result of the earthquakes.
In 2017, the The United States Geological Survey recorded two earthquakes that occurred near a city in central Oklahoma. Both quakes occurred just east of the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond. The first earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 3.7 and occurred at 2:12 a.m. local time. The second earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 2.9, struck shortly after and struck at 2:20 a.m. local time.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage.
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