South Korea's weather service said Wednesday that its employee mistakenly sent to local media outlets a fax message saying that a 6.5-magnitude earthquake occurred in Hoengseong, Gangwon Province.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) apologized for the false message, saying that it was wrongly disseminated amid a five-day disaster response exercise, which began on Monday.

"We apologize deeply for causing inconvenience," the KMA said in a statement.

"The message was made for an exercise purpose, and an employee mistakenly clicked the button to send the message."

The KMA released the message at 5:30 p.m., calling on residents in the affected area to evacuate.