West Texas rocked by fourth-strongest earthquake in state history

There are no reports of injuries or damage in the aftermath of the quake

The fourth-strongest earthquake in the Texas history struck 14 miles north-northwest of Midland last Friday evening in a sparsely populated section of the western part of the state.

The earthquake, which struck just after 5.30 local time, had a magnitude of 5.4. No injuries or significant property damage was reported in the earthquake’s aftermath.

Geophysicist Jana Pursley at the United States Geological Service’s National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado told the Associated Press< that more than 1,500 people over a geographic distance spanning from Amarillo and Abilene in the northern part of Texas to Carlsbad in New Mexico felt the quake.

The earthquake on Friday was the second moderate earthquake to hit the area in as many months after a magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck 95 miles west of Midland on 16 November. Midland and the neighbouring town of Odessa are major oil and fracking centres in the Delaware Basin, and the increasing number of earthquakes in the area has been linked to the prevelance of fracking there.

The book Friday Night Lights about a high school football team, written by HG Bissinger and later turned into a television series, is set in Odessa. Midland is located roughly three-and-a-half hours from Amarillo near the Oklahoma border and Big Bend National Park and the US-Mexico border.

There was a minor aftershock following the earthquake, but reportedly did not do any damage either.