The Japan Meteorological Agency issued an Emergency Earthquake Warning at 12:40 local time on Friday, 16 October, citing a magnitude 9.9 quake near the Kuril Islands and forecasting shaking of about intensity 7.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake near the Kamchatka Peninsula at magnitude 6.9, about 1,200 kilometres from Hokkaido, and the highest intensity recorded in Japan was 1 at Hakodate.
The agency withdrew the warning at 12:48 local time after the epicenter was found to be misplaced, and officials said a cyberattack was not the cause while the mistake is under investigation.
On Friday, 16 October 2026, phones and public emergency systems across Japan received an Emergency Earthquake Warning issued at 12:40 local time. The alert described a magnitude 9.9 quake and forecast violent shaking, about intensity 7 on the Japanese scale, in parts of Hokkaido, the Tohoku region and the Kanto region, including the Tokyo area. Residents were told to seek shelter, and Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed trains were temporarily halted between Shin-Yokohama and Toyohashi in both directions. Eight minutes later, at 12:48, the agency sent a second alert withdrawing the warning, with the wording:
“The Emergency Earthquake Warning issued earlier (at 12:40 p.m.) is canceled.”
Railway traffic resumed shortly afterward. The timeline below shows how the sequence unfolded.
The quake that set off the alarm struck near the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East at about 12:38 local time. The US Geological Survey measured its magnitude at 6.9, at a depth of about 140 to 160 kilometres and roughly 1,200 kilometres from Hokkaido. Its effects in Japan were very limited, with the highest intensity observed on Japanese territory only 1 on the Japanese scale, recorded at Hakodate on Hokkaido, according to Nippon TV. No tsunami warning was issued. Government spokesman Minoru Kihara said no damage had been reported in connection with the quake, while adding that the government takes seriously the fears the false warning caused among many people.
Data from the article text
Ayataka Ebita, director of the agency's earthquake and tsunami observation division, told a news conference on Friday that the agency initially believed the epicenter was in the Kuril Islands, rather than near Kamchatka. He said the error was not the result of a cyberattack and that the mistake was under investigation. Shigeki Aoki, director of the earthquake and volcanic engineering division, said the tremors that reached Japan were barely strong enough to be felt, yet they still triggered the early warning system. Because the system had misplaced the epicenter, its calculations went awry. Early estimates had put the magnitude between 6 and 7, close to the actual figure, before the value climbed to 9.9. A later agency statement said the system had apparently applied a formula for domestic earthquakes to a more distant one, and how that happened is now being examined.
The agency held a press conference to explain the mistake and apologize to the public. The warned figure of 9.9 would have exceeded the 9.5 magnitude recorded for the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in southern Chile, which was followed by a tsunami that caused destruction across the Pacific. The gap between the warned magnitude and the measured one was about three points, enough to send emergency alerts across large parts of the country for a quake that was barely felt.
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Japan's weather agency sent phone alerts for a magnitude 9.9 quake on Friday, 16 October, then withdrew them after finding the epicenter was misplaced. The real quake measured 6.9 near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and was barely felt in Japan.
AI text based on reports by The New York Times, Rai news, Spiegel Online and other publishers. Published .