"Residents across Nevada and California were startled Thursday when their phones erupted with an earthquake alert warning of a powerful 5.9 magnitude. The US Geological Survey (USGS) issued the warning just after 11am ET (8am local), triggering 'Drop, Cover, Hold On!' messages as far as 200 miles from the supposed epicenter near Carson City, Nevada. A quake of that size can inflict moderate damage even on well-built structures."
"But minutes later, the USGS abruptly wiped the event from its system. 'There was no M5.9 earthquake near Carson City, NV,' the agency said on X, adding that it was investigating why the alert went out at all. MyShake, the app that forwards alerts from the USGS ShakeAlert system, confirmed it had relayed a false alarm. The erroneous warning reached cities as far west as San Francisco, 185 miles from the reported location, leaving residents confused and shaken."
"'Phones blasting alerts across Nevada and California to 'Drop, Cover, Hold On!' Aftershocks coming,' one user wrote online. California Governor's Office of Emergency Services confirmed on their X account that false alerts were sent out 'to a broad audience in Northern California.' 'Cal OES is coordinating with our Nevada and federal partners to understand exactly what the federally run monitoring system detected and why,' the agency added."
"'No earthquake false alarm! Someone got trigger-happy after all the earthquake talk,' another social media user posted on USGS released a statement responding to the criticism from Cal OES, saying that the agency would 'provide more information when we learn more.' The MyShake app called the false alarm 'unprecedented and rare,' adding that their alert system had provided over 170 accurate alerts since 2019."
An automatic alert reported a 5.9 magnitude earthquake near Carson City, Nevada, triggering 'Drop, Cover, Hold On' warnings just after 11am ET and reaching areas up to 200 miles away. Such a magnitude can inflict moderate damage on well-built structures. Minutes later USGS removed the event, said there was no M5.9 quake, and opened an investigation into why the alert was issued. MyShake confirmed it relayed the false alarm, which reached cities as far as San Francisco, and called the incident unprecedented and rare. Cal OES confirmed false alerts were sent broadly in Northern California and is coordinating with Nevada and federal partners to determine the cause.
Read at Mail Online
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]