On October 16, Japan's Meteorological Agency mistakenly estimated a 6.9 magnitude earthquake near the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia as a 9.9, issuing an alert for the Tohoku region before canceling it just eight minutes later.
According to Yonhap News, at 12:40 p.m., the agency issued an 'emergency earthquake alert' for the eastern Japan region, which includes Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Hokuriku, Tokai, and the Izu Islands, warning of strong tremors. Residents' mobile phones across the area received the earthquake alert.
However, about eight minutes later, the agency sent out a notification canceling the emergency alert, revising the earthquake's magnitude to 6.9.
The magnitude scale (M) is logarithmic, meaning that each whole number increase represents approximately 32 times more energy released. A difference of 3.0 in magnitude corresponds to an energy difference of about 32,000 times. While the actual magnitude of 6.9 can cause significant shaking and localized damage, the initially reported magnitude of 9.9 would represent an unprecedented disaster never recorded in human history.
It is unusual for the Meteorological Agency to issue and then cancel an emergency earthquake alert. The agency held a press conference later that afternoon to formally apologize for the error, stating, 'The cause was the overestimation of the earthquake's magnitude at 9.9, which was based on the assumption that the epicenter was in the Kuril Islands.' They added that an investigation into the cause is currently underway.
Despite the cancellation of the alert, confusion ensued among citizens, leading to heightened anxiety. Users flooded social media, causing temporary disruptions on platforms like X, and access to Yahoo searches was also reported to be down, according to Japanese media.
The Meteorological Agency noted that aside from a tremor of magnitude 1 detected in Hakodate, Hokkaido, no strong shaking was observed elsewhere in Japan, and there were no tsunami concerns.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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