Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) has apologised after mistakenly issuing an alert warning of a catastrophic 9.9-magnitude earthquake before retracting it minutes later.
The alert triggered emergency warnings on millions of mobile phones after the agency reported that the earthquake had struck near the Kuril Islands, known in Japan as the Chishima Islands.
However, the JMA later clarified that the actual earthquake measured 6.9 in magnitude and occurred near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula shortly after noon, at a depth of 160km.
JMA official Shinya Tsukada apologised for the alarm, saying the error had caused considerable concern and inconvenience among the public.
“We sincerely apologise for the considerable inconvenience and concern caused to the public,” he told reporters.
Although the alert did not trigger widespread panic, it temporarily disrupted public transport services.
The JMA said the mistake stemmed from an anomaly in its calculations of the earthquake’s epicentre.
According to the agency, the magnitude estimate was based on the incorrect assumption that the epicentre was approximately 680km farther from Japan than its actual location.
The incident comes as Japan remains haunted by the devastating undersea earthquake in 2011, which registered a magnitude of 9.0 and triggered a tsunami that killed or left around 18,500 people missing, while also causing the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
Local media reported that a magnitude 9.9 earthquake would release approximately 22 times more energy than the 2011 disaster.
