Did your phone light up this morning with an earthquake alert? Good news. There was no quake.
An alert that notified Bay Area residents of a 5.9 earthquake Thursday morning in Nevada was deleted by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The ShakeAlert message said there was a quake at 8:06 a.m. about 15 miles east of Carson City, near Dayton. Within minutes, though, the notification was deleted, and the initial event report was taken off the USGS website.
Steven Sobieszćzyk, a spokesman for the USGS, said that it was a false alarm.
“There was no 5.9 earthquake near Carson City, Nevada this morning” he said. “We are currently looking into why the warning was issued and we will provide more information when we learn more.”
Before the report was removed, the USGS Did You Feel It survey logged only three respondents saying they had felt a quake — all of them more than 100 miles from the reported epicenter.
ShakeAlert uses buried sensors to send earthquake notifications to millions of mobile phone users, including through the app MyShake. The goal is to give an early warning, before strong shaking hits, so that people can duck under tables and take other preparations.
Sobieszćzyk noted the ShakeAlert system is automated and that while usually accurate, has a few times given the incorrect magnitude for an earthquake. But he said he was unaware of a false alarm in the past.