Tremors stir call for fracking site ban

A tremor measuring 2.9 on the Richter scale has been felt near the UK’s only active fracking site, less than two days after a previously record-breaking tremor at the facility.

The British Geological Survey reported a large tremor related to fracking activity hit near Blackpool at 8.30am yesterday.

The tremor comes only two days after a 2.1 scale “micro seismic event” was detected at the Cuadrilla energy site late on Saturday evening, previously the largest tremor ever recorded at the site.

That event led to operations being suspended at the site, and they had not resumed by the time of yesterday’s tremor, which had a depth of two kilometres and was felt by some residents.

According to the British Geological Survey, this is the third tremor at the Preston New Road site in a week after a 1.55-magnitude tremor was recorded last Wednesday.

The Oil and Gas Authority said: “Operations will remain suspended while the OGA gathers data from this and other recent seismic events and then considers carefully whether or not the hydraulic fracturing operations, mitigations and assumptions set out in the operator’s Hydraulic Fracture Plan continue to be appropriate to manage the risk of induced seismicity at the Preston New Road site.”

Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth has called for a fracking ban after the three large tremors.

Spokesman Jamie Peters said: “This issue of earthquakes in connection to unwanted fracking has always been serious but now it is getting out of hand.”

Heather Goodwin, a resident of Lytham St Anne’s near the plant said: “The walls of my house shook, there was a really deep, guttural roar. For a moment, I really thought my house was going to fall down.”

Lancashire fracking site.