TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsChina says accidentally reported two major quakes which never happened
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Uniformed rescue workers run through a field of rockslide debris to avoid falling stones after an earthquake outside Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan province, China, August 10, 2017. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)
C
hina's earthquake administration said on Friday that it had accidentally reported two major quakes which in fact had never happened, saying they were drills which had been unintentionally released to the public.
Late on Thursday, the administration said on its website there had been two 6.5 magnitude quakes just 10 seconds apart at opposite ends of the country - in the far western region of Xinjiang and in the southwestern province of Yunnan.
The information stayed on its website for at least an hour, though did not appear on its microblog, which is how many people in China first learn of quakes.
In a statement on its website, the administration said they had in fact been holding an emergency response exercise.
"An accidental leak of the quake drill was picked up by the media and caused a misunderstanding," it said. "After this happened, our administration immediately organised relevant departments to delete the inaccurate information."
China is a seismically active country frequently hit by major earthquakes.
A decade ago a 7.9 magnitude quake rocked the southwestern province of Sichuan, killing almost 70,000 people.
