The Buckingham Palace was quick to do damage control after a rogue tweet by a BBC reporter declaring that the Queen is dead.
BBC Urdu Reporter, Ahmen Khwaja, tweeted: "Queen Elizabeth has died," tagging the official account of BBCWorld in the post, The Huffington Post UK reports. But the reporter, just shortly after announcing Her Majesty's death, rapidly retracted the post and changed course, tweeting: "False Alarm to Queen's death! She is being treated at King Edward 7th Hospital. Statement due shortly", the report adds.
And before the UK and the whole world could even begin to fathom the information, here comes another tweet from Khwaja disqualifying her earlier posts: "False Alarm: Have deleted previous tweets." She then said that her phone was left unattended at home and was used for some silly prank. However, the said post was also quickly deleted causing a big cloud of confusion among netizens. But it was already too late, with the story already picked up and reported elsewhere.
Turns out, contradicting Khwaja's explanation, BBC was doing an obituary exercise for BBC's "category-one" of public figures which include the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, and the Duke of Cambridge -- the senior members of the royal family - The Guardian reports. A spokesperson from BBC's press office was quoted, "During a technical rehearsal for an obituary, tweets were mistakenly sent from the account of a BBC journalist saying that a member of the royal family had been taken ill," a spokesperson said. "The tweets were swiftly deleted and we apologise for any offence." At the same time, the office says they are "not in a position to deny" that the reporter have indeed sent a false tweet about the Queen's alleged death.
Meanwhile, the Buckingham Palace was forced to confirm of the Queen's recent trip to King Edward VII's hospital, metro.co.uk reports of the issue. The spokesman said: 'I can confirm that the Queen this morning attended her annual medical check-up at the King Edward VII's Hospital.' 'This was a pre-scheduled appointment and the Queen has now left the hospital.'
Whatever happened and the reason behind the online disaster, it's safe to say that Khawaja had a very rough day in the office that Wednesday.
