On a bright Friday afternoon in Tokyo, at 12:40 p.m. Japan time, the familiar sounds of lunchtime—chatter, traffic, trains rumbling through the city—were shattered by a sudden, piercing chorus of smartphone alarms. People on crowded sidewalks froze mid-step. Others pulled out their phones, squinted at glowing screens, and read a message from the Japan Meteorological Agency that sent a jolt of adrenaline through their bodies: an earthquake was coming, and it would be powerful. “Earthquake Early Warning: Strong shaking is expected soon. Stay calm and seek shelter nearby.” The alert appeared in English, while a Japanese version mentioned an earthquake in the Kuril Islands near Russia. In the streets, sirens blared. Hearts raced. But within eight minutes, the warning was withdrawn, and the terrifying possibility of a catastrophic quake evaporated into confusion and relief. It was a false alarm, caused by a system error, and for many people in Japan that day—especially visitors from Hawaii—it felt like an unsettling replay of a very familiar nightmare. Nearly a decade ago, Hawaii experienced its own false emergency: the infamous 2018 missile alert that told residents and tourists to seek shelter from an incoming ballistic missile. This time, the country was Japan, the threat was an earthquake, and the outcome was similarly anticlimactic. Yet the emotional impact was real, visceral, and impossible to shake off.
The sequence of events unfolded quickly, but to those caught in it, each minute felt heavy with uncertainty. At 12:40 p.m., the Japan Meteorological Agency issued its emergency warning, describing a strong earthquake that was expected to hit shortly. The warning was sent directly to mobile phones across the affected areas, and in Tokyo’s bustling Akihabara neighborhood—a district famous for electronics, anime, and crowds of tourists—the alert caught many people completely off guard. Witnesses later told Hawaii News Now that their phones lit up and alarms sounded off in the streets during the busy lunch hour. The message itself was stark. It did not tell people exactly what to do, other than to stay calm and seek shelter. For those who could read Japanese, the alert mentioned an earthquake in the Kuril Islands, a remote chain of islands between Japan and Russia. But the phrase “strong shaking is expected soon” was enough to make anyone’s stomach drop. At 12:48 p.m., a second alert arrived. It repeated the original English message and added, in Japanese, that “the earthquake early warning issued earlier is being rescinded.” No further explanation was given at that moment. The cancellation came just eight minutes after the initial alert, but for many, those eight minutes felt like an eternity. The Japan Meteorological Agency later apologized and blamed the false alarm on a system error, saying an investigation was underway. But by then, the damage had been done—not physical damage, but the psychological kind that lingers long after the adrenaline fades.
Among those caught in the chaos was Hawaii News Now reporter Casey Lund, who was in Akihabara taping a report when the alarms went off. His reaction was captured on camera in real time—a rare, unfiltered glimpse of someone receiving what seemed to be an urgent, life-or-death warning. Lund was in Japan as part of a delegation from Hawaii attending the U.S.-Japan Council conference, a gathering meant to strengthen ties between the two regions. Instead, he and his colleagues found themselves in the middle of an unexpected test of their composure. The irony was not lost on them. Hawaii residents know all too well what it feels like to receive a terrifying emergency alert that turns out to be a mistake. The 2018 false missile alert was attributed to human error—someone hitting the wrong button during a routine drill—and it caused widespread panic across the islands. Now, in Japan, the same kind of fear was rippling through a group of visitors who had come to talk about diplomacy, partnership, and mutual understanding. For a few minutes, all those high-minded topics were pushed aside by a simple, primal question: What if this is real? The fact that Japanese locals around them remained remarkably calm made the visitors feel both reassured and unsettled. Was the calm a sign that everything was fine, or just a cultural habit of stoicism in the face of disaster? No one knew for sure.
State senator Troy Hashimoto was riding a train through Tokyo with other Hawaii delegates when the alert arrived. He described the moment with a mixture of wonder and unease. “When we got it on our phone, it just said, there’s an earthquake that’s going to happen soon. So we’re like, oh wow, you know, we don’t get advanced warning. And we didn’t realize it was such a big earthquake, but I think a few minutes later, we just got another alert and it said, OK, we’re withdrawing it,” he recalled. Hashimoto said the scariest part was the uncertainty. In Hawaii, earthquakes are not a daily concern, and early warning systems for seismic events are not something residents think about. The visitors took their cue from Japanese passengers, who remained composed and continued their commute as if nothing unusual had happened. That calm was both impressive and puzzling. “I think scary, you know, nevertheless, and I think for us because it’s not something we normally see, I guess we just didn’t know how to react,” Hashimoto said. His words captured a deeper truth about emergency alerts: they are only as useful as the trust people place in them, and trust is hard to maintain when alarms go off too often or too easily. On the train, there was no shaking, no rumbling, no sign that a powerful earthquake was imminent. Just a phone buzzing with an alarming message, followed by a quiet apology. For the visitors, the experience was a reminder that technology, for all its sophistication, is still vulnerable to human error and system failures.
Oahu resident Tim Sakahara was outside his hotel in the Shibuya district when his phone erupted. He described the initial shock with vivid honesty. “Shock and is this real? But I figured I’m in Japan, so it probably is real. And so, you know, I started to kind of put my senses on and figure out like what am I going to do right now?” he recalled. It was a beautiful, sunny day. The sky was clear, the streets were busy, and there was no visual sign of danger. Yet his phone was telling him to prepare for severe shaking. “It’s a beautiful sunny day, you don’t expect to get an alert for a severe earthquake and prepare to die, right?” he said. That stark phrase—“prepare to die”—might sound dramatic, but it accurately reflects the gravity of the warning. In Japan, where earthquakes are a real and constant threat, an early warning is taken seriously. Sakahara began recording on his phone, not out of morbid curiosity, but as a way of documenting what was happening and thinking through his options. He looked around for potential shelter and spotted a tree nearby. “My thought was, well, I’m going to try to go under this tree, because if glass starts falling, maybe that’s going to be a little bit better shield,” he said. It was a practical, instinctive calculation, the kind of split-second decision-making that emerges in moments of crisis. The tree might not protect him from a collapsing building, but it could offer some cover from shattered windows. In the end, he didn’t need it. The earthquake never came. But the memory of that moment—standing in the sunshine, wondering whether he was about to die—stayed with him.
The cause of the false alarm was still under investigation, but initial reports pointed to a serious miscalculation. Japan’s Meteorological Agency initially forecast a magnitude 9.9 earthquake in the Kuril Islands area—a staggering number that, if real, would have been the largest earthquake ever recorded in human history. In reality, a much smaller earthquake struck the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia. According to the United States Geological Survey, the actual magnitude was 6.9, which is significant but not catastrophic, and it produced only a mild tremor for some people in Japan. How could a 9.9 be confused with a 6.9? The discrepancy seemed almost absurd. No earthquake with a magnitude of 9.9 has ever been documented, and the difference between 6.9 and 9.9 is enormous in terms of energy release. Sakahara speculated that perhaps the Russian earthquake triggered something on Japan’s network and sensors, creating a false signal. “Earthquake prediction isn’t an exact science,” he said. Hashimoto joked that maybe someone pressed the wrong button. “We have to see what the fallout is, if maybe somebody pressed instead of 6, it can be turned into a 9, who knows, but I’m sure the Japanese will have an explanation and take a quick action to fix that kind of thing,” he said. The Japan Meteorological Agency acknowledged that a safety feature was not working properly, and an investigation was underway. For many, the episode was a sobering reminder of the fragility of the systems we rely on to keep us safe. It also echoed the 2018 false missile alert in Hawaii, which was caused by a human error during a drill. In both cases, the public was left to grapple with a difficult question: How do we trust warnings that can be wrong? The answer is not simple. But the experience of that Friday afternoon in Tokyo—the alarm, the fear, the relief, the apology—serves as a powerful human story about vulnerability, resilience, and the complicated relationship between technology and trust. In the end, no one was hurt, and the only lasting damage was to the confidence people place in the systems designed to protect them. But as the investigation continues and Japan moves to fix its safety features, the hope is that the next alert will be one that never needs to be rescinded.