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Japan mistakenly issues warning for magnitude 9.9 earthquake
BNO News • • world
Key Points:
- Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) mistakenly issued an early warning for a magnitude 9.9 earthquake, predicting strong shaking across much of Japan, including Tokyo, but the actual earthquake was magnitude 6.9 near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
- The false alert was issued around 12:36 p.m. Japan time and canceled 12 minutes later at 12:48 p.m., with the early-warning system incorrectly identifying the epicenter near the Kuril Islands.
- The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed the real earthquake’s magnitude as 6.9, located about 76 kilometers northeast of Ozernovskiy, Russia, at a depth of approximately 143 kilometers.
- No shaking was felt in Japan, and no tsunami warnings were issued; JMA has announced it will investigate the cause of the erroneous alert.
- A magnitude 9.9 earthquake would have been the largest ever recorded, far exceeding the 1960 Chile quake at magnitude 9.5, and releasing about 32,000 times more energy than the actual event.
