WORLD ENDS! (NOT)

E. Coast tsunami? Oops

At least it wasn’t a missile warning.

The National Weather Service churned up a tidal wave of confusion Tuesday when it sent out a false tsunami alert automatically relayed by AccuWeather.

The NWS issued a test warning at 8:30 a.m., but it was improperly coded, according to AccuWeather, so the company blasted it out to cellphones on the East Coast and Caribbean and Gulf regions.

The message (above) read, “Tsunami Warning in effect for [location] until 9:28 AM EST.”

A full copy of the NWS warning, viewable only after opening AccuWeather’s app or site, made it clear the message was a test.

But AccuWeather insists the flub was not its fault.

The company says it uses computer algorithms to separate NWS’s real warnings from tests before automatically pushing out genuine alerts to the public.

AccuWeather claims the feds’ improper coding tricked the system into forwarding a test warning as real.

But a rep for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that oversees the NWS, disputed AccuWeather’s claims and said that the test was clearly and correctly coded.

“Our investigation into this routine monthly tsunami test message confirmed that it was coded as a test message,” said Susan Buchanan, NOAA’s acting director of public affairs. “We are working with private-sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognize the coding.”

The blunder occurred some three weeks after an erroneous missile alert plunged Hawaii into chaos while officials scrambled for 38 minutes to figure out how to issue a correction.

The Hawaii worker who mistakenly sent the alert was fired and the head of the state agency announced his own retirement following an investigation that showed poor communication.

Tuesday’s mistake came just before a House emergency-preparedness committee hearing on the emergency-alert system.