Two powerful earthquakes jolted Ecuador on Wednesday, a magnitude 6.7 early morning temblor followed by a 6.8 shake near midday.

The extent of damage from the second quake was not immediately clear, though President Rafael Correa announced on Twitter some areas along the coast had lost power and said schools would be cancelled nationwide as a precaution. The first caused little serious damage.

Both appeared to be aftershocks of a magnitude 7.8 quake a month earlier.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the second quake hit at 11:46 a.m. (12:46 p.m. EDT; 1646 GMT) and was centered along the coast below land about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of the city of Rosa Zarate.

The earlier quake was centered less than 10 miles (about 10 kilometers) away and struck shortly before 3 a.m. local time. Both are less than 100 miles (155 kilometers) west-northwest of the capital, Quito.

Earthquakes triggered by human activity have been happening in Texas since at least 1925, and they have been widespread throughout the state ever since, according to a new historical review of the evidence published online May 18 in Seismological Research Letters.

The earthquakes are caused by oil and gas operations, but the specific production techniques behind these quakes have differed over the decades, according to Cliff Frohlich, the study's lead author and senior research scientist and associate director at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Frohlich said the evidence presented in the SRL paper should lay to rest the idea that there is no substantial proof for human-caused earthquakes in Texas, as some state officials have claimed as recently as 2015.

A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has struck Ecuador, the US Geological Survey reports. The country has been recently hit by a series of devastating quakes that killed dozens of people.

The quake took place 34km from the town of Rosa Zarate and 35km from the town of Muisne, which already suffered from previous tremors.

According to the USGS, the quake was at a depth of 32km.

More than 600 people were killed and over 2,500 injured in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the Ecuadorian coast in April. That quake was followed by a series of strong aftershocks. The disaster ravaged coastal towns and left thousands of households without power.

Scientists are monitoring a swarm of earthquakes on Mount Hood in the past 24 hours, but there's no cause for alarm, a geophysicist said Monday morning.

The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and the U.S. Geological Survey websites reported more than five dozen in the Mount Hood Village area as of 11:30 a.m.

The 62 minor earthquakes registered less than 2.0 magnitude and began about 6 p.m. Sunday, according to the seismic network website.

Most of the tremors are clustered east of Timberline Highway and north of U.S. 35 in Mount Hood Village, an area designated by the U.S. Census that included a population of 4,864 in 2010.

Mount Hood has experienced at least 72 earthquakes in 30 days, according to the seismic network.

John Vidale, director of the seismic network, said his data indicates the tremors have been occurring along a fault three miles deep on the south of the volcano.

"Swarms are pretty common around here, and this is probably the biggest one in Hood for a few years," Vidale said.

An earthquake preliminarily measured at 5.6 magnitude has hit off the Japanese coast, just north of Tokyo, Japanese national broadcaster NHK reports.

Local news outlets say the quake was felt in the Saitama and Tokyo areas, with buildings swaying.


Metro operations were briefly suspended on all routes in Tokyo, but services restarted four minutes later.

An elevator maintenance firm in Tokyo said several elevators stopped in the metropolitan area due to the quake with commuters asked to "use emergency buttons," according to NHK.

TASS news agency reports that books fell from shelves and furniture shook at its headquarters in Tokyo.

No damage was reported at airports, the Japan Times reports, citing officials.

However, NHK claims there was some panic just after the tremors when windows shook at a hotel where a G7 Science and Technology ministerial entourage is staying ahead of a conference this week.

Epicenter of tremor some 100 kilometers southwest of Eilat; no reports of injuries or damage

An earthquake rumbled in the Red Sea early Monday morning, shaking buildings in the Sinai peninsula and as far north as Israel's southern tip.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in Israel from the temblor, which struck at about 4:45 a.m Monday morning.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the tremor measured 5.0 on the Richter scale with an epicenter in the Red Sea, 25 kilometers northeast of Dhahab, Egypt, and 100 kilometers southwest of Eilat in Israel.

Last month, a very small earthquake hit parts of southern Israel as local residents of the city of Arad and the Dead Sea area reported experiencing minor tremors.

So small was the temblor, the Geophysical Institute of Israel said, that it could not even be measured on the Richter scale, the Ynet news website reported.

They call it now the San Isidro fault and it has started opening up suddenly after the M7.8 earthquake that hit Ecuador on April 16, 2016. This giant Earth crack has already swallowed up about 116 hectares of land, destroyed a farm and is threatening farmers. Officials are preoccupied!

The strong 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook Ecuador on April 16, 2016 had another powerful consequence in San Isidro.

Large cracks and holes have already swallowed more than 150 hectares of fields and destroyed an entire farm with about 70 heads of cattle, and chickens and some houses threatening farmers' lifes.

The main event occurred suddenly in a loud boom.

Farmer Gonzalo was at home with his wife his daughter, 5 years, and his nephew when the the house started falling apart.

Then, outside, they were surrounded by holes and cracks.

They were able to save about 20 calves and cows from the armageddon.

New research indicates that nearly 40 percent of new wastewater injection wells approved over the past year in California are perilously close to fault lines, increasing the risk of man-made earthquakes in the already seismically active Golden State.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) found that 13 out of 33, or 39 percent, of new drill permits for wastewater disposal wells issued by regulators with California's Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) between April 2015 and March 2016 were for drill sites within 5 miles of a fault.

The CBD also found that 26 of the 33 rework permits for wastewater disposal wells granted by DOGGR over that same period were for wells within 5 miles of a fault. Rework permits are required when a company wants to re-drill a well or alter a well casing.

The CBD said it is concerned about these rework permits because alterations to an injection well can signal that a company is resuming wastewater injections, increasing the volume of water injected, or injecting in a different area underground — all actions that raise the specter of induced earthquakes.

A study released in February found that wastewater injections were likely to blame for an earthquake swarm in Kern County, California, one of the biggest oil-producing counties in the United States.

DOGGR is no stranger to controversy, of course, having previously admitted to improperly permitting as many as 2,000 wells to inject fluids from enhanced oil recovery techniques like fracking into underground aquifers that should have been protected under state and federal law.

In a letter, the CBD urged California Governor Jerry Brown to "protect Californians from oil industry-induced earthquakes by ordering your regulators to stop issuing permits for wastewater injection wells within five miles of a fault."

The letter notes that among the 26 rework permits issued was one for a Tejon oilfield well that has already been linked to induced earthquakes. That well was examined in the February study, which identified oil-waste injections as the probable cause of a series of earthquakes in 2005 near Bakersfield, CA, at least one of which was as severe as 4.7 in magnitude. The authors of the study said that "considering the numerous active faults in California, the seismogenic consequences of even a few induced cases can be devastating."

The US Geological Survey revised down its original assessment of 5.9-magnitude.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 shook northeast Taiwan on Thursday (May 12), the US Geological Survey said, with tremors felt as far away as the capital, Taipei.

The quake was centred 14 km (nine miles) northeast of the coastal town of Su-ao, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

AFP reporters in Taipei said Thursday's quake rocked high-rise blocks. There were also reports by local media of power cuts and people trapped in lifts, it added.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The USGS initially assessed it to be a 5.9-magnitude quake, before revising the figure down. It added that the earthquake was 10-kilometre below earth's surface.

Earthquakes are common in Taiwan. In February, a 6.4-magnitude quake toppled a large apartment complex in southern Taiwan killing more than 100 people. The island's worst quake disaster came in September 1999 when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed around 2,400 people.

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake hit Changdu in Tibet at 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday (May 11, 2016), said the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The epicenter was monitored at 31.99 degrees north latitude and 94.94 degrees east longitude, with a depth of seven kilometers.

Source: Philippines News Agency