A 4.6 magnitude earthquake occurred in Iran, with the epicenter located from the town of Aradan, in the Semnan province at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers. This was reported by the US Geological Survey. Tremors were felt across this region and reached up to 110 kilometers distance to Tehran. Days after the earthquake, Israel also reported a much weaker shudder which lead to an online storm of speculations on various social media platforms. The near-simultaneity of both occurrences and tensions between Iran and Israel led social media to draw Speculation of underground nuclear test correlation with the quakes.
One X (Twitter) user said, "Iran has gone nuclear since last night. They used test bombs 10 km below the surface near Semnan to ensure minimum radiation exposure and it resulted in a 4.6 scale earthquake. One other earthquake was also located just near their nukes." Some even said that is reminiscent of the past seismic activities of North Korea, which were later confirmed to be nuclear tests. One user pointed out In Feb 2013, an earthquake in North Korea turned out to be a nuclear test. A Nov 2017 Iran earthquake was also dubbed as an N-test. No confirmation emerges linking the earthquake to the nuclear test is done as of now, but the online debates concerning the intentions behind Iran's nuclear ambition have been fueled by the timing and location of the seismic activity.
Despite the rumors spread about this, experts believe that true natural earthquakes do occur within Iran which is a very seismogenic region. However, such a coincidence of both the tremors is unusual, keeping speculations afloat as social media users keep questioning about underground nuclear test in Iran or this was a natural earthquake.
Inputs by Agencies
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