False Earthquake Alert Causes Panic In Japan

The land of the rising sun is no more a stranger to earthquakes. In fact, many countries are in awe of how fast the small but high-tech nation can always seem to pull themselves up quite so fast after some of the biggest quakes in recent times.

False mega-earthquake (9.1) alert sent #Japan into complete standstill https://t.co/Vtq0paX8bP pic.twitter.com/gsNsH6gWCL

— RT (@RT_com) August 2, 2016

Still, that does not mean that the Japanese are immune to these Earth tremors. In fact, when the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a fake earthquake warning for a magnitude 9.1 tremor around 5PM on August 1, many understandably panicked. According to IFL Science, the quake would have been so powerful that it would have been equal to the devastating 2011 Tohoku event that claimed the lives of over 20,000 people.

Fortunately, according to Japan Times, the quake may have been a technical glitch and did not take place. A JMA official shared, "the quake that had been predicted has not taken place," adding that it was an "error on our part. We sincerely apologize." According to The Guardian, The JMA sent the alert that the magnitude 9.1 earthquake has struck, but cancelled it merely seconds later. However, even their instant cancellation of the news did not reach smartphone apps, one of which passing the warning on to its clients. The Yurekuru disaster warning app soon buzzed its own warning message, leading a lot of people to panic.

What especially made people panic was the fact that there have been reports of trains in Japan being as much as "10 minutes late," a travesty, considering how the country is known for their incredibly efficient, always on-time transportation. Japan is among the most quake-prone countries in the world, sitting at the junction of four tectonic plates, leading a lot of earthquakes to the area. However, due to Japan's very rigid building codes, strong tremors do little damage to their infrastructure.