A Chinese college student was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison for spreading a rumor about an impending earthquake that caused a panic in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Jia Zhipan, 22, a student at Eurasia University in the provincial capital of Xi'an, hacked into the website of the provincial earthquake bureau at about 8:53 p.m. on May 29 and posted false information that a magnitude 6 to 6.5 quake would strike Shaanxi and neighboring Gansu Province at 11:30 p.m., the People's Court of Yanta District in Xi'an heard.

The false information caused a panic and many people called the bureau about the "quake". A lot of people stayed out in rented tents on the city square.

Jia realized how serious the situation was after he found the post had attracted more than 700 hits. He then deleted the information.

Police arrested him on June 4.

The court said Jia did it out of curiosity about the public reaction.

The court took into consideration the fact that he was a naive student and that he had apologized to the public several times.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2008)