An erroneous alert for an earthquake that did not occur went out Thursday morning. Screenshot: MyShake
Editors’ note: This story first appeared on KQED.
Phones across Northern California lit up this morning with a notice warning of an earthquake in Nevada, and urging people to “drop, cover and hold on” — an alert that turned out to be a false alarm.
The U.S. Geological Survey quickly canceled the warning and posted a statement online that said there was no earthquake at all.
“On December 4, 2025, the ShakeAlert EEW system released an incorrect alert for a magnitude 5.9 earthquake near Reno and Carson City, Nevada,” the statement read. “The event did not occur, and has been deleted from USGS websites and data feeds. The USGS is working to understand the cause of the false alert.”
The alert caused at least one TV station, KTVU, to report on the quake.
Four million Californians have downloaded the MyShake app, which provides real-time alerts for earthquakes on smartphones.
The app was developed at UC Berkeley’s Seismology Lab and funded by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). It buzzes when an earthquake of a magnitude of 4.5 or higher occurs.
Berkeley’s seismology team posted a statement to social media at 9:55 a.m. about the false alert by the MyShake system.
“This system has delivered more than 170 real alerts since 2019 and this incident is both unprecedented and rare,” MyShake said on X. Fortunately, there was no danger this morning, but this serves as a reminder that earthquake preparedness is essential.”
Berkeleyside is a media partner of KQED, a listener-supported public radio station serving Northern California. Berkeleyside occasionally republishes KQED stories we believe will be of interest to our readers.
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