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Central Oklahoma on Monday was hit by seven quakes that damaged a few buildings. One of them was so severe that it could be felt in Iowa, that was 300 miles away.

"It lasted for several seconds, but it's hard to tell when you just wake up," said one resident Frankie Robbins. Her home is in Medford, 80 miles south-southwest of Wichita. She could feel a force of 4.7 magnitude that hit the area early at 4:00 a.m. The quake was felt at Wichita too.

A heavy critic of the state's reaction, State Rep. Cory Williams, appreciated that the commission took some steps to avoid the earthquake's impact. However, he pointed out that the state has not addressed the issue even though a huge 5.6 magnitude quake of 2011, which broke 200 buildings. It was "incompetent" of the state legislature, said Williams.

Just some of the earthquakes were felt with a magnitude of 3.0 or above in 2012, but this year 720 quakes hit the country, especially in places where many injection wells transferred waste water into the earth. Hence, state regulators told disposal well operators to bring down the volume or close their operations, according to The Week.

The oil and gas industry claims to be discussing the issue with regulators in order to work out a cost-effective solution, according to News OK.

"If you just shut it down, it would be devastating," said Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. "The goal is to be able to reduce earthquakes and still be able to produce."