Fact Check: Michibiki satellite of Japan has no connection to earthquake felt in Mumbai, Srinagar

Hyderabad: An earthquake of magnitude 3.5 on the Richter Scale was reported near Mumbai in Maharashtra, and 3.6 at Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday morning (September 22, 2020), according to India's National Centre for Seismology. It is the nodal agency of the Indian government to monitor earthquake activity in the country and it said that the quake occurred at 9.40 pm in Srinagar.

The epicentre of the earthquake was 104 km north of Mumbai, Maharashtra, the agency said. In Mumbai, the quake struck at 2:50 am IST at a depth of 5 km from the surface.

A picture of a rocket surrounded by smog is going viral on social media with a claim that China had attacked India with a missile and that the tremors of the attack were felt like an earthquake. The post captioned as "#BREAKING

CHINA THROUGHED MIZZILE IN INDIA THAT WAS IN THE LOOK OF EARTHQUAKE: SOURCES

MORE DETAILS AWAITED...

#stayconnected"

(archived link)

Fact Check:

This picture is of Japan launching a satellite 'Michibiki-4' in 2017. The claim is FALSE.

Using a reverse image search, Newsmeter found this picture on Engadget. The caption accompanying the photo reads, "Japan's latest GPS satellite will guide self-driving cars". On October 10, 2017, this satellite was launched from Japan.

The Reuters report uses the same picture. According to this report, the purpose of launching the Michibiki-4 satellite was to improve GPS services.

Hence, the claim that China launched a missile to attack India is FALSE.