The earthquake alarm that startled Berkeley this morning was a false alarm

A false alert was issued for an earthquake that did not occur Thursday morning. Screenshot: MyCheck

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, urging people to “surrender, take cover and wait” — an alert that turned out to be a false alarm.

The US Geological Survey quickly canceled the warning and posted a statement online that no earthquake had occurred at all.

“On December 4, 2025, the ShakeAlert EEW system issued an incorrect alert for a 5.9 magnitude earthquake near Reno and Carson City, Nevada,” the statement read. “The event did not occur, and has been removed from USGS websites and data feeds. USGS is working to understand the cause of the false alert.”

The alert caused at least one television station, KTVU, to report on the quake.

Four million Californians have downloaded the MyShake app, which provides real-time earthquake alerts on smartphones.

The app was developed at the UC Berkeley Seismic Laboratory and funded by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES). A humming sound is produced when an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 or higher occurs.

Berkeley's seismology team posted a statement on social media at 9:55 a.m. about the false alert from the MyShake system.

“This system has provided over 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 that we think will be of interest to our readers.

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