Seismologists in Japan issued an erroneous warning about the strongest earthquake that caused panic among local residents and partially paralyzed transport links in the country, the BBC reported on Friday.
Reports of an emergency threat sent to millions of people on mobile phones have been the result of a failure in the earthquake warning system. It is assumed that it was associated with earlier forecasts of the Japan Meteorological Agency, which reported two small earthquakes; but as a result of the error they were combined into one.
As a result, people were notified of a tremor magnitude 6.4, which was to occur in the coastal part of Ibaraki Prefecture in the north-east of the country. However, instead, two shocks with a magnitude of 4.4 and 3.9 were noted. Both of them occurred at sea and did not destroy on land.
Due to a false alarm about the approaching danger, Japanese TV channels and radio stations reported, the movement of trains was temporarily suspended.
