BoM app sends out a ‘tsunami alert’, but it’s not what it seems

The Bureau of Meteorology sent out a test tsunami warning via its app, causing confusion for thousands of users.

The alert was triggered by a fictitious magnitude 8.2 earthquake off the coast of New Zealand and was part of the agency’s transition to new tsunami early warning software.

BoM clarified that there was no real tsunami threat to Australia and that the notifications were for testing purposes only.

Many Australians believed the alert was real and blamed the FBI for the false alarm.

“If you’re going to send ‘TSUNAMI ALERTS’ as a test, maybe include that in the title of the notification and not just in the message that should open in the app,” one said.

More to come