On June 12th, at noon, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake struck Shiqu County, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The China Earthquake Networks Center issued a report more than 20 minutes after the earthquake, leading to netizens questioning the malfunction of the automatic alert system.
According to the official Weibo account of the China Earthquake Networks Center, at 11:48 a.m. on June 12th, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake occurred in Shiqu County, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province (latitude 33.61 degrees, longitude 97.46 degrees), with a depth of 10 kilometers.
The epicenter was located 42 kilometers from Chengduo County, Qinghai Province, 81 kilometers from Yushu City, Qinghai Province, 92 kilometers from Shiqu County (county seat), and 161 kilometers from Maduo County, Qinghai Province.
More than 20 minutes after the earthquake, at 12:14 p.m. on June 12th, the official Weibo account of the China Earthquake Networks Center finally issued a report about the earthquake. The delayed report from the earthquake center sparked discussions among netizens, who questioned the malfunction of the automatic alert system.
“China Earthquake Networks Center reported too slowly.” “Isn’t it too late?” “The response was slow, you know.” “I’ve been checking constantly, why didn’t it show up? Turns out there was a malfunction.” “Why was it only posted on Weibo?” “It seems like it was manually posted, the automatic alert system must have malfunctioned.”
Additionally, netizens from Shanxi commented: “Just felt like there was an earthquake in Linyi (County), Yuncheng? Scared me.” “It was terrifying.” Qinghai netizens mentioned, “The door of a house in Yushu, Qinghai was shaking loudly.”