Shanghai seismological experts have dismissed a rumor that has been spread through online forums that Shanghai was about to be hit by an earthquake and a tsunami.

"Seismological monitoring has detected nothing unusual in Shanghai. The so-called predictions were groundless rumors," China News Service quoted an unnamed Shanghai expert as saying.

The rumor began to circulate online after an earthquake, measuring 8.3 on the Richter Scale, occurred in the northwestern Pacific on Saturday.

"The epicenter of Saturday's earthquake was 3,400 kilometers away from Shanghai. Its effect on Shanghai was next to nothing," the expert said.

He also said that, according to statistics from the last 500 years, none of the nine recorded earthquakes and tsunamis on the Chinese mainland had ever caused great damage to the coastal regions.

"Shanghai doesn't have the geological features for a large-scale earthquake or tsunami," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2007)