50-Year-Old Man Arrested For Convincing People That A 'Giant Dragon' Caused An Earthquake
His fake photo went viral and caused panic on the Internet.
By Tamara Jayne — 10 Jul 2019, 12:47 PM
Following the disaster, a 50-year-old man in China was recently arrested for spreading rumours that a "giant dragon" had caused the earthquake
According to Mothership, the photo was uploaded to Weibo by Zhang during the first week of July.
The 'dragon', which resembled a large snake, appeared to have been slithering out from a hillside, as hundreds of people stood around it.
As translated by the news portal, the photo's caption read:
An earthquake which took place in Yibin has caused severe debris flow. A 120-meter dragon with a diameter of 1.5 meter jumped out of water at 2pm today, attracting thousands of people. Experts have flown here and said that this dragon has something to do with the earthquake.
The fake photo quickly went viral on social media, and caused panic among those who believed it was real
"It's photoshopped but I believed in him," wrote one netizen, according to Mothership.
Another commented: "My grandma told me about this. She was upset after I told her that it was fake, saying that other people have seen it, and that it's my problem for fooling her."
"Rich imagination," wrote one netizen on Weibo.
The suspect, who claimed that he edited the photo "just for fun", has since been detained
He also penned an apology letter confessing to the incident after local authorities arrested him on 3 July.
