Yunnan authorities say accurate earthquake forecast ‘broke the law’
Yunnan authorities said a private agency which accurately predicted the 5.0 magnitude earthquake in the region on Wednesday “broke the law”.
Zhang Junwei, a spokesman for Yunnan Earthquake Administration, said any earthquake predictions by private parties or agencies were violating the law. “All earthquake forecasts must comply with relevant laws,” he said on Thursday. Zhang was responding to a successful private prediction of a 5.0 magnitude earthquake which hit Yunnan’s Dali district on Wednesday night.
The earthquake demolished 493 houses and injured 14, a report by Xinhua said. It affected nearly 130,000 people from 12 nearby towns.
The post also urged provincial newspaper and rescue institution to be on high alert for “abnormal seismic activity”.
Initially, the post did not get much attention. It was reposted only 300 times - a relatively small amount for China’s most popular social networking platform. But it went viral after people discovered the earthquake occurred as predicted - in the same region, with same magnitude and in a similar time frame.