Singer Aaron Yan (炎亞綸) was forced to apologize on Tuesday for comments he made about the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that jolted parts of the nation on Monday.
Yan, a former member of the pop group Fahrenheit (飛輪海), on Monday said on Facebook that “the rainfall after a period of drought earlier this week led to the softened soil which caused the repeated earthquakes.”
He phrased the comment as an observation.
Photo: CNA
Several netizens took issue with the post, leading to a flame war with Yan that included the singer asking whether some commenters were students of geology.
Yan deleted the post when most responses said Yan’s comments “lacked common sense.”
Yan made another post on Tuesday citing statements by Central Weather Bureau Seismology Center Director Kuo Kai-wen’s (郭鎧紋).
“As a basin, with soft soil and a high level of underground water, the shock waves would be amplified and cause Taipei to experience resonance,” Kuo was quoted as saying.
However, Kuo later said that the soil state had no relation to tectonic plate shifts, which netizens took as another blow to Yan’s defense of his statements.
The band Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤) mocked Yan’s statements, calling them comments from “an airhead celebrity” on what should be common sense.
In response, Yan said he felt there was a particular style of debate between him and Facebook users, and that he did not consider how the wording of his comments magnified the event.
Though some netizens accused Yan of finding it difficult to admit that he was wrong, Yan later on Tuesday posted an apology.
He said it was his duty as a public figure to “correct certain statements,” especially since most of his fans are in their teens.
Yan said that he could have been more careful in how he approached the matter and should not have discussed an unproven hypothesis with fans without first seeking evidence, adding that he was sorry that his views might have misled students.
“In an effort to clear things up, earthquakes are caused by tectonic plates converging,” Yan concluded in his post.
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