False tsunami alert startles US

PETRIFIED: WARNINGS ON PHONES WAS TEST MESSAGE

New York

False tsunami warnings flashed on cellphones along the US East and Gulf Coasts on Tuesday morning when a US National Weather Service (NWS) systems test went awry, unnerving Americans from Maine to Texas.

The false alerts appeared to have been sent by the private forecasting company AccuWeather, according to cellphone images posted on social media. AccuWeather pointed the finger at the NWS.

“Yikes!” Trish Milburn, a writer of romance novels who lives on Florida’s Gulf Coast, wrote on Twitter. “That warning is not what you want to see when you live less than 10 feet (three metres) above sea level.”

It was not the first time this year Americans were roused by their cellphones warning of an impending catastrophe. Last month’s false alarm was a missile headed for Hawaii.

The NWS said its National Tsunami Warning Centre issued a routine monthly test message that was misconstrued, spooking people in cities as far apart as Boston and Houston.

“The test message was released by at least one private sector company as an official ‘Tsunami Warning’, resulting in widespread reports of tsunami warnings received via phones and other media across the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean,” the service said in a statement.

At least some people who clicked the alert to read the full message saw a disclaimer that the alert was in fact a test, according to screenshots posted online.

AccuWeather said the NWS wrongly coded the test as a real warning, confusing its automated alerts system. – Reuters