Chinese police arrest fake quake hacker

Identified only by the surname Chen, the teenager is thought to be from east China's Jiangsu province, the Beijing News reported.

The report claimed that Chen had admitted to illegally entering the Guangxi province's seismology website at the end of May in a bid to show off his technical skills.

After hacking into the site, it is alleged that the 19 year-old altered text on the home page to warn of a "huge earthquake of magnitude 9 or more".

The hack came just weeks after devastating earthquakes in the Sichuan province on 12 May which killed around 70,000 people.

Police arrested Chen on 4 June in Taicang city, after he hacked into the same site and deleted data on 1 June and 2 June.

According to the report, the teenager had been held for five days in March for other hacking offences.

No details surrounding a trial date or possible sentence were given.