Japan Sends Mistaken Missile Alert to Airports After Quake

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oops

Japan Sends Mistaken Missile Alert to Airports After Quake
By Naoko Fujimura - Apr 13, 2013 10:08 PM CT

Japan’s aviation bureau mistakenly reported a North Korean missile launch as it sought damage reports from airports after the biggest earthquake in the western part of the country since 1995.
The bureau sent the pre-written e-mail alert to 87 airport offices after the temblor hit at 5:33 a.m. yesterday, the Transportation Ministry said in a statement. The message was retracted at 5:39 a.m., and it may have caused a delay as long as four minutes to one flight, according to the statement.
The ministry will require that two officials check all weekend mobile-phone alerts prior to distribution to prevent any similar mistake, it said in an e-mailed release last night.
The 5.8-magnitude quake was the biggest in the region since the 7.2-magnitude Great Hanshin Earthquake in January 1995, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said. There were 23 people injured due to the tremor, the Fire and Disaster management Agency said in a statement yesterday. No damage to nuclear plants was reported, it said.
A magnitude-9 quake and subsequent tsunami off Japan’s northeast coast on March 11, 2011, crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic station, causing meltdowns and radiation leaks that will leave areas around the plant uninhabitable for decades.

Oops: Erroneous tweet claimed N. Korea missile launch

With Japan on edge, Yokohama apologizes 20 minutes after worker posted alert on Twitter.

Tweet was up for 20 minutes
Agency apologized for the announcement
Japan has been on alert since North Korea threatened nuclear war
The people charged with managing crises in Yokohama, Japan, created a mini-crisis Wednesday morning by erroneously announcing on Twitter that North Korea had launch a missile.

It took 20 minutes for one of the agency's 40,000 Twitter followers to call and point out the mistake, The Japan Times reported. The tweet was deleted immediately and the agency apologized.

Japan has been on alert since North Korea threatened nuclear war against its neighbors and the United States. Amid the saber-rattling, Pyongyang said it would test-launch a mobile ballistic missile, which Tokyo said it would shoot down if it passed over Japanese territory.