False Earthquake Alert Unnerves NorCal

Residents across Northern California and Nevada woke up to a message urgently advising them to duck and cover due to a 5.9-magnitude earthquake just east of Lake Tahoe.

That earthquake never actually happened.

"USGS #ShakeAlert confirms that the earthquake alerts that were delivered at 8:06 a.m. are canceled. There was no M5.9 earthquake near Carson City, NV. We are currently looking into why the alerts were issued. We'll provide more information when we learn more," the United States Geological Survey said in a tweet.

The USGS has since deleted the earthquake from their online list.

"Today at 8:06 AM, MyShake distributed an alert for a M5.9 event in Lyon County, NV," MyShake, which is run from the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at UC Berkeley, wrote in a tweet. "This was a false alert by the #ShakeAlert system and this is currently being investigated. This system has delivered more than 170 real alerts since 2019 and this incident is both unprecedented and rare. Fortunately, there was no danger this morning, but this serves as a reminder that earthquake preparedness is essential."

On Dec. 9, 2024, a magnitude 5.5 quake actually did hit southeast of Reno, followed by several aftershocks felt in Central California.

The Bay Area has also seen a number of quakes recently, including a cluster of quakes that struck near Gilroy averaging around 4.0, and over a dozen quakes of around 3.8 striking near San Ramon.

A similar false alarm happened in March, when the USGS sent out an alert for a magnitude 4.6 earthquake near the Salton Sea in Southern California that was also a false alarm.

"The message was sent in error during a system testing," USGS Public Affairs Specialist Paul Laustsen of the Moffett Field Earthquake Science Center told Patch.“There was no earthquake of that magnitude at that time or at that depth. We are still looking into what happened. This is definitely a rare occurrence.”

SEE ALSO:

• Large SoCal Earthquake Alert Erroneously Sent By USGS
  
• Swarm Of Quakes Rattles East Bay
  
• Swarm Of Strong Quakes Hit South Bay: Did You Feel Them?
  
• CA's 'Big One' May Look Like No Other Quake In History Or Forecast Models, Researchers Warn
  
• Are You Living on a Fault Line?
  
• Fault Capable Of 8.0 Quake Awakens Thanks To Ridgecrest Temblors