Malaysia issues false tsunami warning

Malaysian authorities issued a false tsunami warning today but quickly withdrew it and blamed the blunder on a technical glitch.

The Meteorological Department initially said a strong earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale hit the northern part of Indonesia’s Sumatra island this morning, and could cause a tsunami in the northern Malaysian states of Kedah, Perlis and Penang.

The initial warning admonished people to stay off the beach, but was quickly withdrawn when a new statement said officials had verified that a moderate 5.9 magnitude quake occurred off the southern coast of Java island and there was no threat of a tsunami.

“We had a technical problem. The system broke down, so we sent out an old warning to everyone but we had corrected it,” a department spokesperson said.

“There is no tsunami threat.”

The warning was carried by national news agency Bernama and was sent out by a local media group on the internet and via a nationwide text-message service.