CHICAGO • A tsunami warning test was accidentally sent as a real alert to the phones of residents along the United States East and Gulf coasts and the Caribbean on Tuesday.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued what it characterised as a "routine test message" at about 8.30am local time, but the message was erroneously transmitted by at least one weather app to smartphone users as a push notification alerting them of a tsunami. Social media posts indicated that the alert was received from Maine in the north-east to Texas in the south.
Once users clicked on the alert, an accompanying text made clear that it was "a test to determine transmission times involved in the dissemination of tsunami information". The NWS has issued multiple clarifications to assure the public that there was no danger.
AccuWeather, which sent out the alert, said the NWS wrongly coded the test as a real warning, confusing its automated alerts system.
The NWS said its investigation confirmed the message was coded as a test. It is working with "private sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognise the coding".
The error came less than a month after a false incoming ballistic missile alarm was sent out to the mobile phones of Hawaii residents, triggering panic.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
