A tiny American town has become one of the earthquake capitals of the world after suffering more than a dozen tremors every single day. Residents of Guy in Arkansas have lived through thousands of minor quakes in just six months after gas drilling apparently destabilised the earth beneath them. So frequent are the tremors - which go up to four on the Richter scale - that they have been given their own name: the Guy earthquake swarm.

Scott Ausbrooks, a geologist with the Arkansas Geological Survey, said: ‘All this activity happened after these wells had gone online.

'What you could be looking at is a case where the strain was already there. You’d be fast-forwarding the clock,’ he told the New York Times.

His team have also already said there is ‘strong temporal and spatial’ evidence for a link between the drilling and the quakes.

Charles Morgan, a lawyer representing Poseidon Energy Services, which drilled one of the gas wells in Guy, said there was ‘no casual connection’ between the drilling and the tremors.

‘The evidence is anecdotal at best,’ he said.

Also, Beebe, AR is about 45 miles away.