Feb 23 (Reuters) – The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) withdrew an advisory from its website that said a magnitude 6.5 earthquake had struck Thailand early on Monday.
A GFZ spokesperson confirmed that the agency was no longer reporting a quake in Thailand and said the inaccurate alert had been issued due to a glitch in the automated system.
Thailand’s meteorological service said there had been no earthquake with an epicentre in the country.
GFZ issued the alert over Thailand minutes after a separate report about a quake that struck off the coast of the nearby island of Borneo. The Borneo report has not been removed and remains active.
A GFZ official contacted by Reuters said the Thailand false alert was a glitch caused by the “very deep and very strong earthquake beneath Borneo”.
The research centre, like other public bodies that monitor earthquakes, frequently updates reports with additional information and occasionally deletes reports that prove false.
(Reporting by Disha Mishra and Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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