A magnitude 5.0 earthquake centered near one of the world’s key oil hubs brought down building facades and shattered windows, triggering fears the temblor might have damaged key infrastructure and rendered century-old buildings unsafe in the latest Oklahoma town rattled by increasingly strong quakes.
Cushing Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier told a news conference late on Sunday that a few minor injuries were reported.
He said the damage appeared to be contained to downtown, where piles of debris sat at the base of some commercial buildings. Fearing aftershocks, police cordoned off older parts of the city to keep gawkers away.
An assisted living community had been evacuated after damage was reported, Frazier said.
The Cushing Public School District canceled classes for today.
“Stay out of the area,” Cushing City Manager Steve Spears said, adding that while some damage was superficial, compromised foundations and other potential problems would be difficult to assess until daylight in the city of 7,900 about 80km northeast of Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation on Sunday night reported that no highway or bridge damage was found within a 24km radius of the earthquake’s epicenter.
The US Geological Survey initially said Sunday’s quake was of magnitude 5.3, but later lowered the reading to 5.0.
Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. Sunday’s quake was centered 1.6km west of Cushing — and about 40km south of where a magnitude 4.3 quake forced a shutdown of several wells last week.
“I thought my whole trailer was going to tip over, it was shaking it so bad,” said Cushing resident Cindy Roe, 50. “It was loud and all the lights went out and you could hear things falling on the ground.”
Cushing’s oil storage terminal is one of the world’s largest. As of Oct. 28, tank farms in the countryside around Cushing held 58.5 million barrels of crude oil, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. The community bills itself as the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.”
Frazier said two pipeline companies had reported no trouble as of late Sunday but that the community had not heard from all companies.
Megan Gustafson and Jonathan Gillespie were working at a Cushing McDonald’s when the quake hit.
“It felt like a train was going right through the building, actually,” said Gustafson, 17, on Sunday night as she and her co-workers stood behind a police barricade downtown, looking for damage. “I kind of freaked out and was hyperventilating a bit.”
Gillespie described the building as shaking for about 10 seconds or so.
However, he said he was not as alarmed as Gustafson because he lives in an area that has experienced multiple earthquakes.
“I didn’t think it was anything new,” he said.
There have been 19 earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week, US Geological Survey data show.
When particularly strong quakes hit, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission directs well operators to seize wastewater injections or reduce volume.
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