False Alert Issued for Nevada
A recent alert from the U.S. Geological Survey mistakenly indicated a 5.9 magnitude earthquake occurred in Nevada, but no such event took place.
The erroneous alert was reported near Carson City and Reno, close to the western border with California. Notifications were sent out at 8:06 a.m. to residents in potentially affected areas, according to the Geological Survey.
The agency is currently investigating the reasons behind the issuance of these alerts and plans to provide updates as more information becomes available. A notice on their website stated: “The event did not occur and has been removed from USGS websites and data feeds.”
This incident marks the first false alarm for the ShakeAlert system since its inception in 2019, which has issued over 170 alerts for actual earthquakes. The MyShake app, which disseminates these alerts, confirmed this was an unprecedented occurrence.
According to system designers, human error was not a factor in this automated alert process. Robert de Groot, Operations Team Lead for ShakeAlert, emphasized that “nobody dropped the ball” regarding this incident.
