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Widely Reported

Japan Meteorological Agency issues and retracts false magnitude 9.9 earthquake alert

The Japan Meteorological Agency mistakenly issued an emergency earthquake warning indicating a magnitude 9.9 event near the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula, triggering widespread mobile alerts from Hokkaido to the Tokai region. The alert was withdrawn roughly eight minutes later after no shaking was observed. The agency stated that the cause of the false warning remains under investigation.

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The sources disagree.
Each position is reported as its publisher stated it. We do not reconcile them.
7 differing positions reported on attribution across 12 publishers; unresolved.
  • mirrormedia日本氣象廳
  • ltn日本氣象廳
  • ettoday日本
  • stheadline日本氣象廳
  • cna-tw氣象廳
  • epochtimes日本
  • newtalk日氣象廳
  • rfi日本政府气象厅
  • pts日本氣象廳
  • secretchina日本
  • chinanews日本气象厅
  • elnuevodia-coJapón
4 differing positions reported on location across 8 publishers; unresolved.
  • mirrormedia日本
  • ltn日本
  • cna-tw日本
  • yna日
  • epochtimes日本
  • secretchina千岛群岛
  • chinanews日本
  • elnuevodia-coJapón
3 differing positions reported on timing across 5 publishers; unresolved.
  • mirrormedia8分鐘後
  • ettoday8分鐘後
  • yna8분 만에
  • newtalk8分鐘後
  • chinanews两度
3 differing positions reported on status across 13 publishers; unresolved.
  • mirrormedia虛驚一場
  • ltn急發
  • ettoday完全沒搖晃
  • stheadline誤報
  • cna-tw誤判
  • yna취소
  • epochtimes误发
  • newtalk誤報
  • rfi误报
  • pts烏龍警報
  • secretchina误把
  • chinanews错估震级9.9级
  • elnuevodia-coFalsa alerta
WhereJapan
35.556, 137.279 ±400 km
First reported9 days ago
Published2026-10-16 08:53 UTC
Sources13
How this travelled.
Reports24Independent tellings12
12 independently corroborated tellings, 1 reported as carrying another outlet.

Corrections and updates

No published correction or update is recorded. This does not reconstruct changes made before correction records were kept.

Cite this record

Global Event Monitor. Japan Meteorological Agency issues and retracts false magnitude 9.9 earthquake alert. 2026-10-16T08:53:59.469Z. Status: published. urn:global-events-monitor:event:6090. https://global.eventmonitor.net/event/2026-10-16/9-9-6d920883

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