The Bureau of Meteorology issued a test tsunami warning via its app, confusing thousands of Australians who thought there was a real threat.
The alert was triggered by a fictitious 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of New Zealand and was part of the agency’s switch to new tsunami early warning software.
BoM made it clear that there was no actual tsunami threat to Australia and that the reports were for testing purposes only.
‘The Bureau of Meteorology placed test verification messages on the BOM app between 11:00 and 12:00 AEST on Wednesday 25 September 2024 as part of the transition to the new Tsunami Early Warning System software,’ it explained. ‘There is no tsunami threat to Australia.’
Many Australians believed the alarm was genuine and responded to the Bureau for the false alarm.
“If you’re going to send ‘TSUNAMI NOTIFICATIONS’ as a test, maybe include that in the title of the notification and not just in the message you have to open in the app,” someone said.
There’s more to come