Oklahoma Earthquake Today: Property Damage Reported After 3 Earthquakes Rock State
A number of houses and roads were reported damaged after three earthquakes rocked central Oklahoma Saturday morning. No major injuries or deaths were declared.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a 4.7-magnitude earthquake shook the state at 2:12 a.m., with the epicenter about six miles north of Prague in Lincoln County. That is about 50 miles east of Oklahoma City and 75 miles southwest of Tulsa.
No major injuries or deaths have been reported but the quake was felt by sleeping residents throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and northern Texas.
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Officials say that at least 14 homes were damaged in the state of Oklahoma. In Shawnee, Okla., the earthquake caused a spire to fall from a five-story building on the campus of St. Gregory's University, built in 1915, multiple local media report.
The Weather Channel reported cracked buildings, buckled roads and collapsed chimneys.
Residents of Prague said everything was falling off the walls, and the furniture was, in some cases, tipping over.
A chimney on a two-story house collapsed near Prague,according to local publication NewsOK.
"We are in sand springs oklahoma and the earthquake litterly [sic] shook us out of bed," a local user Tweeted over the weekend.
The state has experienced a year of unprecedented freak nature occurrences, according to The Weather Channel. The quake follows a record-breaking snowfall in February, record heat in July, a year-long drought, a series of tornadoes and the largest hail recorded in the state’s history.
Saturday, the 3.4-magnitude aftershock occurred just 15 minutes after the initial quake from the same location. Another 2.7-magnitude aftershock was recorded at 2:44 a.m.
"Oh, man. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life," Prague City Police Department dispatcher Claudie Morton told the Tulsa World. "It was the scariest thing. I had a police officer just come in and sit down and all the sudden the walls started shaking and the windows were rattling. It felt like the roof was going to come off the police department."
Oklahoma Geological Survey researcher Austin Holland told a local TV station that the earthquakes and aftershocks occurred on a known fault line.
