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Bloomberg
The backlash against shale drilling in earthquake-prone regions — a thorn in the side of US energy companies for the past decade — reached China this week after a series of temblors killed two people and reduced homes to rubble.
China’s biggest oil and gas producer halted drilling in an area of the country’s shale hub after three quakes toppled nine houses and caused cracks in dams holding back five small reservoirs, according to the government website of Zigong city in the southwestern province of Sichuan. A further twelve people were injured and nearly 11,000 homes damaged, with losses pegged at about $2 million dollars. The incident spurred residents to gather at a government building to ask if increased shale drilling in the area was to blame, state-run CCTV reported.