Tokyo residents had good reason to be scared Monday morning. Thousands were told a magnitude 9.1 earthquake was imminent. That's strong enough to level a city.
But apparently it was a false alarm. The Japan Meteorological Agency sent out the alert and then immediately took it back. But it wasn't fast enough to stop weather apps from sending scary notifications.
An agency official said lightning may have hit a seismograph, causing the false alarm.
It wouldn't be Japan's first magnitude 9.0 or higher quake. A magnitude 9.0 quake triggered a tsunami in 2011 that killed 18,000 people.
Earthquake app went crazy. something wrong with Japanese gov system... If this were true, japan is 120% dead pic.twitter.com/zseT1L5IsN
— Kosuke Okahara (@kosukeokahara) August 1, 2016
That included this disaster-warning app, Yurekuru, with at least 5 million downloads to date.
The Great East Japan #Earthquake False Alarm 2016. We shall rebuild.
— Phoenyx 🌵 (@phx787) August 1, 2016
...bottle fell when I briefly panicked lol pic.twitter.com/iN1eM23vWl
Once the error was realized, some tried to respond with humor.
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