Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting another earthquake in a TikTok video.
John Moe made the prediction on April 9, just two weeks after a magnitude 7,7 earthquake struck the country.
Then, according to government data, 3.500 people died and centuries-old temples in this Asian country were destroyed.
He was arrested for making "false statements with the intent to cause public panic," Myanmar's Ministry of Information said.
John Moe warned that the earthquake would "hit every city in Myanmar" on April 21.
However, experts say that earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.
- More than 2.000 dead in Myanmar earthquake, search for survivors continues
- Earthquake in Myanmar: Mandalay - from 'city of gold' to a place where everything stinks of death
- Seven factors that make earthquakes deadly
In the video, which has had more than three million views, John Moe urged people to "take important things and run away from buildings during an earthquake."
"People should not stay in tall buildings during the day," he wrote.
A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbors believed the prediction.
They refused to stay in their houses and were outside on the day John Moe said the earthquake would happen.
His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300.000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.
He was arrested at a house in Sagaing, central Myanmar.
The Mandalay and Sagaing regions were particularly hard hit by the March 28 earthquake, leading to a rare request for foreign aid from the Myanmar junta.
That earthquake was felt about 1.000 kilometers away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens of people.
- What are faults and how do they affect earthquakes?
- Can technology predict earthquakes?
- Are there seismologists in the Balkans to measure the power of earthquakes?
BBC is in Serbian from now on and on YouTube, follow us HERE.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
