Peace Time: The Sound Of Panic

Archives

February 26, 2009: In early February, a military exercise in southern China (near Hengyang in Hunan province) panicked over 100,000 people into fleeing their homes. It seems that the large bombs dropped by aircraft during the exercise caused homes near the air force bombing range, to vibrate. Mindful of the well publicized earthquakes in central China last May (that killed 90,000 people), the rumor began that the vibrations were the beginning of another series of violent earthquakes. Because so many people have cell phones (and because there was no earthquake, phone service was not interrupted), the word got around to a large area and entire villages and neighborhoods began to empty out. It took two days for officials to convince everyone that it was safe to go home.

Local officials have asked the air force to publicize future exercises featuring large bombs.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close