Big Shell-Exxon earthquake in Dutch Groningen

This 14 July 2017 video says about itself:

Dutch earthquakes: Oil giants facing more legal action

Oil giants Shell and Exxon Mobil are facing a new legal battle with residents of a province in the Netherlands.

Earthquakes, said to be caused by drilling for gas, have wrecked hundreds of homes.

And also many farm buildings, medieval churches and other construction.

The people of Groningen are demanding the government take more action to limit gas production. Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen reports from Groningen.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Groningen province startled by a major earthquake

This morning there has been a major earthquake in Groningen province. The KNMI reports that it had a power of 3.4. The epicentre was at Westerwijtwerd, a village in Loppersum municipality.

Last January, Groningen was also startled by an earthquake with a power of 3.4. The epicentre was then in Zeerijp, also in Loppersum municipality. 3000 damage reports came after that quake.

Update 30 May 2019: After the 22 May quake, almost 3000 damage reports so far, including scores from Drenthe province.

“This morning’s quake is now in the top 3 of the worst ones in Groningen,” says seismologist Läslo Evers of the KNMI. “This quake will have caused damage.” The heaviest quake ever in the province was in Huizinge in 2012 and had a force of 3.6.

…

Around 5.50 am the editors of regional broadcasters RTV Noord received hundreds of messages from a large part of the province from people who felt the quake.

They responded from Winsum, Ten Boer, Groningen city, Haren, Bedum, Zeerijp and Appingedam.

Prime Minister Rutte called the earthquake this morning “terrible”. In the Good Morning Netherlands TV program, he said he hoped the damage would be less than expected. According to Rutte, everyone in the nineteen fifties was still very optimistic about gas extraction, but it has now “turned into a nightmare”.

Dear Prime Minister Rutte: a nightmare largely made by your pro-Big Business right-wing VVD political party. Which has a revolving door with fossil fuel corporations like Shell. Now, at last, local VVD politicians in the northern Netherlands have lost enthusiasm about Shell, Exxon, fracking, etc. The racist far-right global warming denialist FvD is now the most slavish pro-Big Oil party.

In Westerwijtwerd after the quake, residents hang the Dutch and Groningen provincial flags today half mast: ‘Our government consciously endangers us’.

A comprehensive catalog of earthquake sequences in Texas’s Fort Worth Basin, from 2008 to 2018, provides a closer look at how wastewater disposal from oil and gas exploration has changed the seismic landscape in the basin: here.