False tsunami alert sent to US coasts

CHICAGO (AFP) – A tsunami warning test was accidentally sent as a real alert to the phones of residents along the US East and Gulf Coasts and the Caribbean on Tuesday -- just weeks after a false missile alert triggered panic in Hawaii. The National Weather Service issued what it characterized as a "routine test message" at approximately 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT), but the message was erroneously transmitted by at least one weather app to smartphone users as a push notification alerting them of a tsunami. Social media posts indicated the false alert was received from the northeastern state of Maine to Texas in the south – via New York City. Once users clicked on the alert, an accompanying text made clear that it was "a test to determine transmission times involved in the dissemination of tsunami information." While there were no reports of panic, the National Weather Service issued multiple clarifications to assure the public that there was no danger. In the most recent of them, it said its probe had concluded that the message was in fact coded as a test.