Taiwanese singer-actor Aaron Yan wrote a message on his Facebook page on April 22 to apologize for the scientifically-flawed posts he posted on the same social networking platform about the recent earthquake in Taiwan which caused uproar among netizens.

On April 20, Monday, Yan uploaded a post on his official Facebook page about the 6.6-magnitude earthquake which happened recently in eastern Taiwan.

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The former member of the boy group Fahrenheit allegedly posted the message out of goodwill, saying, "Previously, it hasn't rained for a long time and this week, the sudden downpour caused the overly dry soil to become moist. This has caused the soil to erode and become loose, leading to the series of earthquakes."

However, his seemingly harmless post caused netizens to ridicule the singer-actor for his incorrect explanation with regard to the earthquake while other criticized him for lacking knowledge about geography.

The 29-year old pop star then replied to the comments of the netizens by posting three messages to clear the issue. In the succeeding posts following the first one, Yan explained that he never made a direct correlation between earthquakes and soil erosion.

Furthermore, in his posts, he cited some statements made by the director of Taiwan's Seismology Center, Kuo Kai WEn, and used it to support his opinions regarding earthquakes.

However, Yan's aim to fortify his opinions backfired because Kuo contradicted his statement, stating that there is no direct link between soil erosion and earthquakes. The director of the Seismology Center also explained that earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates.

Netizens further mocked Yan, accusing him of being a 'smart aleck' who refused to admit his mistakes. Others also gave him the ironic nickname 'Geography scholar'.

Unable to hold out from the pressure, Yan eventually wrote a message to apologize and admit to his mistake.

"I'm sorry that I caused people to worry that I may be imparting flawed knowledge," he wrote. "I really could have handled this issue better, I'm sorry." 

TagsAaron Yan, Taiwan