SEVERAL
earthquakes rocked the
United States, striking deep underground in
Oklahoma,
Nebraska and
Los Angeles. Here are the latest earthquake location maps from today.
A US Geological survey has just recored a 4.3 magnitude earthquake near Perry, Oklahoma, just hours after California and Alaska were hit.
Reports suggest the tremor started 17 miles southwest of Perry at 5:20am CST (12:20pm GMT).
Hitting at a depth of two and a half miles, the earthquake ripped through the Tulsa area in the early hours of the morning.
Oklahoma had been rumbling across the weekend.
Garfield County Emergency Management Director Mike Honigsberg said there are no immediate reports of injury or serious damage following the quakes.
The threshold for damage usually starts at 4.0. The strongest earthquake on record in Oklahoma was a magnitude 5.8 recorded near Pawnee on September 3, 2016, CBS affiliate KOTV reports.
Many of the thousands of earthquakes in Oklahoma in recent years have been linked to the underground injection of wastewater from oil and natural gas production.
The largest tremor was at 7:16 a.m. a few miles outside Covington, a town of about 500 people. Reports on the USGS website show it was felt as far away as Kansas City, Missouri, some 300 miles (480 kilometers) northeast of Covington.
People in Joplin, Missouri, and Wichita, Kansas, also reported feeling it.
Where are the earthquakes?A 3.3 magnitude quake hit an area 16 miles southwest of Perry just an hour earlier.
The state had been hit by 13 earthquakes in 48 hours, including a 4.6 magnitude quake on Saturday morning.
This comes just hours after Stepleton Nebraska was rocked by a 3.3 magnitude quake and Muscoy and Borrego Springs was hit by 2.1 and 1.5 magnitude quakes respectively.
Los Angeles is suffering from sustained earthquakes this week, with 5.3 magnitude tremors rocking the west coast on Friday, stirring fears that a much bigger quake could be imminent.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) marked the epicentre as being 17 miles south-west of Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands.
No casualties were reported but the Los Angeles Police Department warned people to be on alert for a larger tremor.
It tweeted: “#Earthquake follow-up: There have been no reports of earthquake-related damage or injuries within the City of Los Angeles. Our region hasn't shook like that since 2014. This should serve as a steadfast reminder to act now, get those earthquake preparedness kits ready.”
California is located on the Ring of Fire, a major area in the Pacific Ocean basin the cause for nearly 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes.
Last year, Robert Graves, a research geophysicist at the USGS, said that the state should prepare for a large-scale quake to hit soon.
He told Raw Story: "The San Andreas fault in southern California last had a major quake in 1857 (magnitude 7.9).
"Studies that have dated previous major offsets along the fault trace show that there have been about 10 major quakes over the past 1,000-2,000 years.
"The average time between these quakes is about 100-150 years."