Quake with magnitude of 4.5 hits near Cushing, Oklahoma

(Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 hit near the north-central Oklahoma city of Cushing on Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was shallow, at a depth of about 1 km (0.6 miles), with its epicenter at 5 km (3 miles) from Cushing, it said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. It was the second significant quake to hit the state in a day, the USGS said, adding a quake with a 4.4 magnitude hit near Medford, about1 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Cushing, on Saturday morning. Cushing is the storage hub for U.S. crude oil, at the nexus of web of pipelines. Oklahoma and several other central U.S. states have experienced a major increase in earthquakes since 2009. Scientists attribute this to increased underground injection since then of briny wastewater, a byproduct of booming oil and gas production. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Sandra Maler and W Simon)