8 Minutes of "Mega-Earthquake" Terror... Unprecedented Cancellation Incident

[Anchor]

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued an emergency earthquake warning today (October 16), claiming that a magnitude 9.9 "mega-earthquake" had occurred. Japan was thrown into chaos as bullet trains were halted and citizens panicked, but the earthquake warning was cancelled eight minutes later.

For more details, let's go to Tokyo and hear from correspondent Mun Junmo.

[Reporter]

[Earthquake. Earthquake.]

At around 12:40 PM today, earthquake alarms went off simultaneously across televisions and cell phones in Japan.

The alert stated that a magnitude 9.9 mega-earthquake, unprecedented in observational history, had occurred in the Kuril Islands, and that a maximum seismic intensity of 7 was expected in wide areas of Japan.

Seismic intensity 7 is the highest rating on the Japan Meteorological Agency's scale, representing a massive earthquake where people cannot stand and wooden buildings collapse.

However, aside from an intensity of 1 observed in Hakodate, there was virtually no shaking in most regions.

Ultimately, the earthquake warning was cancelled eight minutes later.

The actual epicenter was not the Kuril Islands stated in the warning, but off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula more than 400 kilometers away, and the magnitude was also revised from 9.9 down to 6.9.

Some sections of the Shinkansen bullet train suspended operations for about 15 minutes before resuming.

[Local Government Broadcast : The emergency earthquake flash report issued a moment ago has been cancelled.]

Although brief, citizens were left gripped by fear.

[Citizen : I was startled. The magnitude was huge, and even when it was cancelled, the emergency alert sound went off again, so I was startled twice.]

[Citizen : I was shocked. We had things like the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, after all.]

In the wake of the unprecedented cancellation of the earthquake warning, the Meteorological Agency bowed its head in apology.

[Ebita Ayaki / Director of Earthquake and Tsunami Monitoring Division, Japan Meteorological Agency : We deeply apologize for causing great inconvenience to everyone. We are truly sorry.]

The agency explained that the fully automated "Emergency Earthquake Flash" system incorrectly determined the location of the epicenter and wrongly applied a calculation formula intended for domestic hypocenters, leading to an overestimation of the magnitude.

The agency stated that there was no cyberattack on the system, but added that it has not yet figured out why the error occurred.

(Video by Han Chul-min | Video Editing by Cho Moo-hwan | Graphics by Cho Soo-in)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.