The rumour effect

A day before yesterday there was a mild earth quake in our city. I was in college at that time. Before I could realise that the tremor was in reality an earthquake and run out of the class along with other students it was over. Anyways it gave rise to many rumours some of which were quite ridiculous. Some them were as follows:-

1) The earthquake measured 6.0 on richter scale.
Now where on this earth will an earthquake of this magnitude leave all the buildings intact with only a few cracks. In reality it measured just 3.9 on richter scale.

2)In a school the roof has fallen killing 3 students and one teacher.
The collector, SP and other govt. officials reached the school only to find that nothing of that sort has ocurred.

3)Now the most ludicrous one :- The earthquake has caused a wide chasm in ground. Lava is flowing out of it and this is being reprted on all news channels including BBC.
Large number of people left their daily chores and flocked to see this never before phenomenon in our city. It was concluded that it was a small fire and smoke was coming from a pile of garbage which had been burnt. The next day i found that there was no mention of the news in local news paper leave alone BBC.

5)The quake came at about 11 in the morning. There were rumours that next tremors were expected at 12.00 and also at 3.00 pm making all the people really uneasy. Some of them actually spent the rest of the day outside their homes. In reality there were no such warnings.

5)A telephone tower has fallen down killing a large number of people.

There were many simlilar rumours. Had these rumours been true then i believe the death toll would hav easily crossed 70-80.

The actuality:- It was just a mild tremor which lasted for just a few seconds (on higher side i think for 8-10 seconds). Only a girl died and even that was due to fear and not due any wall or celing falling down.