Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, experiencing around 1500 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher per year (including a small one while I was writing this paragraph). Most of the time these quakes are just part of living in the country, and thanks to Japan’s excellent building codes we don’t even react when things start shaking a little. After the terrible damage and loss of life from the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunamis on March 11, 2011, Japan started making big changes to its early warning system including adding a feature to all cell phones that causes them to beep loudly if a quake is coming. Yesterday afternoon all the cell phones in J-List started going off at once, warning us of a large quake that was headed for Nara, Japan. Happily it was a false alarm caused by sensor noise, but it scared the socks off of millions of people, caused the country’s Shinkansen trains to halt operation and even bought Yahoo Japan’s website down, as everyone logged in to check on the damage.
A false alarm was sent to millions of cell phones in Japan.
