Parts of Oklahoma and Kansas now face earthquake risk on par with California
Federal map of earthquake vulnerability finds threat to seven million people in central and eastern US amid increasing oil and gas production
Oliver Milman
TheGuardian.co.uk
Tuesday 29 March 2016
People in parts of Oklahoma and Kansas now face the same threat of destructive earthquakes as Californians, with human-induced tremors from oil and gas production helping spread earthquake vulnerability across much of the US.
For the first time, the US Geological Survey mapped out areas of the country vulnerable to earthquakes caused by human activity as well as natural events and found that around seven million people in the central and eastern US are at risk from ground-shaking episodes.
The risk of a major tremor over the next year is greatest in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas, the USGS study found, with the largest number of at-risk people found in Oklahoma and Texas. Colorado, New Mexico and Arkansas also have a significant number of people potentially disturbed by earthquakes caused by human activity.
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