英语 英语 日语 日语 韩语 韩语 法语 法语 德语 德语 西班牙语 西班牙语 意大利语 意大利语 阿拉伯语 阿拉伯语 葡萄牙语 葡萄牙语 越南语 越南语 俄语 俄语 芬兰语 芬兰语 泰语 泰语 泰语 丹麦语 泰语 对外汉语

VOA慢速英语--False Earthquake Alarm Sends Tremors Across Twitter

时间:2017-06-28 23:17来源:互联网 提供网友:nan   字体: [ ]
    (单词翻译:双击或拖选)

 

This is What’s Trending Today….

Earthquakes are not uncommon in southern California. Citizens there know how to react and respond if the ground starts shaking.

On Wednesday night, many of them received an email from the U.S. Geological Survey that warned of a large earthquake. The message reported a powerful, 6.8-magnitude quake. Many people also saw similar Twitter messages from the government agency that follows seismic activity around the world.

So, they expected to feel the earth shake.

But nothing happened.

It turns out Wednesday’s message was sent by mistake.

So, how did this happen? Researchers from the California Institute of Technology say they had been using new information to relocate the center of a 1925 earthquake off Santa Barbara, California. That quake severely damaged buildings and killed 13 people.

The new information somehow caused an automated message to be sent out to email accounts and Twitter.

A statement from the USGS said the research “was misinterpreted by software as a current event.” It said it is working to fix the issue.

The fake quake report even affected newspaper writers in California and other places. They often use alerts from the USGS to begin their reports. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times, for example, sent out a story on the quake that it had to quickly correct.

It later explained on Twitter that the newspaper has a computerized system that produces stories about earthquakes based on the USGS alerts.

But, the Times said, “The USGS alert was incorrect.”

The USGS does sometimes release false alarms. But they rarely are for quakes so big or in areas with so many people.

Wednesday’s false alarm listed the quake as taking place on June 29 -- the same day as the 1925 event. However, it reported the year as 2025.

Such an early prediction would truly shake up the field of seismology.

And that’s What’s Trending Today.

Words in This Story

magnitude –n. a measure of an earthquake’s strength or power

seismic –adj. relating to or caused by earthquakes; seismology –n. the study of earthquakes and their processes

automated –adj. made or carried out by a machine rather than a person

misinterpret –v. to not understand correctly

alarm –n. a warning, usually with sound

shake up –v. to make many changes in (something, such as a company or organization)

本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎点击提交分享给大家。
------分隔线----------------------------
TAG标签:   VOA慢速英语
顶一下
(0)
0%
踩一下
(0)
0%
最新评论 查看所有评论
发表评论 查看所有评论
请自觉遵守互联网相关的政策法规,严禁发布色情、暴力、反动的言论。
评价:
表情:
验证码:
听力搜索
推荐频道
论坛新贴