A magnitude 5.4 earthquake wracked Midland, Texas at around 5:35 p.m. local time Friday evening, the fourth-strongest earthquake to ever occur in Texas.
“It’s a sizable earthquake for that region. In that region such an event will be felt for a couple of hundred miles,” Jana Pursley, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center, told the Associated Press.
The tremors, which occurred around five miles underground, are considered an intraplate quake; there are no tectonic faults nearby. The region has had frequent seismic activity in recent years, including aftershocks from Friday’s quake.
“Since 2018 about 120 earthquakes of magnitude 2.