I haven’t seen any real newspapers taking the rumors about the earthquake seriously. I’ve only found one paper that has - the notoriously unreliable Epoch Times, here and here.
The first rumor is reasonable - to a degree. Word quickly spread on the Internet on Monday that the Sichuan government website had posted an article about quashing rumors of an impending earthquake. I’ll borrow the Epoch Times’ translation:
At 8 p.m. on May 3, the Earthquake Preparedness and Disaster Reduction of the Seismological Bureau of Ahazhou received calls to inquire whether “Suomo Town, Maerkong County was going to have a major earthquake that village officials advised villagers to stay outdoors” was true.
After receiving the calls, the Bureau immediately asked the Earthquake Preparedness and Disaster Reduction of the Seismological Bureau of Maerkong County to investigate the source of the rumor, to dispel it, to widely explain the actual situation, and to prevent the rumor from spreading further. Upon receiving the notification, the Maerkong Seismological Bureau of immediately contacted Suomo Town People’s government and notified them of the situation.
The County government investigated the source speedily and found that in a televised phone conversation of Maerkong County regarding the transmission of provincial geology disaster prevention and control, the village officials mistakenly took the ‘geological disaster’ as ‘earthquake disaster.’
It went on to say that the rumor had been successfully dispelled and normal life had resumed. Then, the earthquake happened. By Monday evening, the original article had been deleted (but the Google cache is still available), as had copies of it on Sohu, Tianya and other sites leading some to believe in a cover-up. The problem with this as a conspiracy theory is that earthquakes cannot be predicted. They might be in the future, but we haven’t reached that point yet. And that makes the Sichuan government’s explanation far more believable than the alleged conspiracy. The word “coincidence” exists because coincidences happen and this would seem to be one - a desperately tragic one.
It is just possible that I’m wrong about that allegation. But not about the second. On May 7, a “geological worker” in Wuhan is supposed to have posted the following prediction (translation again borrowed from the Epoch Times):
“I predict China will have an earthquake on May 12, 2008!
I am a geological worker. According to information I have in hand, and exchange that I have had with some foreign colleagues, I predict China will have an earthquake on May 12, 2008. The approximate location will be in the middle of Sichuan and Hubei, though all China may feel the tremors.
My prediction cannot be announced publicly because there is no real proof and it may cause panic. I am from Wuhan (City); according to my prediction, the earthquake should not be far from Wuhan. I hope my fellow Wuhan residents will tell their families and friends in time to be prepared.”
The post included a detailed chart in English listing the precise location, depth and time of the quake. It’s been definitively debunked here, along with a screenshot of the “prediction” (h/t ProState in Flames). A Google search on Monday showed that the claimed prediction had actually been posted three hours earlier and not five days before the quake. And the chart actually came from the US Geological Survey website, posted after the quake took place.
Chang Ping argues that people innocently communicating information that may be wrong should not be punished. I agree with him. The law against spreading rumors is a dangerous one, open to serious abuse by the state. But I really wonder how sick someone has to be to start the second rumor quoted above.
6 Comments
With regard to the first rumor, it will be benefitial if more people know type I error (false positive) and type II error (false negative) in statistics/forcasting. NO forecasting is 100% accurate, and before making any forecasting, one has to weight the relagive likelihood and consequence of the two types of errors in making that forecasting. So it’s likely that some people have forecasted the quake, but if the forecast is deemed by most other people to have significant chances of being a type II error, with that error having significant consequences, than it’s fairly normal that the forecast (of certain individuals) not announced to the public.
Also, the USGS has the following useful FAQs.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/faq.php?categoryID=6
Ahem…don’t know if you guys know this, but Epoch Times is actually part of the Falun Gong organisation’s money making/marketing/propaganda vehicle. I think people should take what they print about China with a very big pinch of salt, although recently they have been alot less obvious about it, but occasionally their sentiment and bias still comes out.
>>I think people should take what they print about China with a very big pinch of salt,
I agree. Just wondering: does this rule apply to the entire state-controlled media in China as well? Or only CNN and the Epoch Times?
“Last night saw another mass exodus from the core of the city area as rumors flew about another “looming” seismic event. Cars lined any boulevard where the buildings were “out of reach” and people slept the night away in them, with makeshift canopies and tents hanging off the opened doors and trunks.”
Excerpt from well-established Chengdu forum
@Jim
Well Jim, if one is smart one should read what ANYBODY writes with a pinch of salt and instead look at an issue from varying perspectives, but most important of all, KNOW YOURSELF AND LEARN TO THINK FOR YOURSELF.
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