Earthquake Hits Oklahoma After Trump Rally in Tulsa, Felt Across State

An earthquake that struck northern Oklahoma on Saturday night was felt across the entire state, including Tulsa---right after President Donald Trump finished his rally before thousands of attendees. USGS

An earthquake that struck northern Oklahoma on Saturday night was felt across the entire state, including Tulsa—right after President Donald Trump finished his rally before thousands of attendees.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the magnitude 4.2 earthquake happened at 10:15 p.m. near Perry, located about 80 miles west of Tulsa. It hit at a depth of 4.8 miles, and it was the largest quake to hit Oklahoma since May of last year when a 4.4 magnitude tremor struck.

According to the USGS website, residents in Oklahoma City, Ponca City, Tulsa, Stillwater, and other cities reported feeling the tremor.

Local station Fox25 said that more than 200 people sent in reports about the temblor.

The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Tulsa also wrote that its staff felt the earthquake.

Thousands of earthquakes have been recorded in Oklahoma over the past several years, and some experts have linked them to fracking, or the underground injection of wastewater during oil and gas production. Regulators have called on producers to close some of the wells.

Some noted that the crowd size was smaller than what was expected, but Trump’s campaign wrote that the “rally in Tulsa attracted over 4 million unique viewers across all of the campaign’s digital media channels. The live-streamed pre-rally shows drew an audience of more than 2.5 million unique viewers by themselves,” adding that “these numbers don’t even include television viewers.”