Authorities in north China's Shanxi Province confirmed Thursday five people have been detained for spreading earthquake rumors.

The male suspects confessed to having spread quake rumors via the Internet and mobile phone text messages. Their postings and messages said an earthquake was going to hit the coal-rich province.

Fu Wenhui, a 20-year-old college student from Shanxi, is suspected of spreading earthquake rumors in an online chatroom on China's leading search engine, Baidu.com, on Feb. 20.

In his posting entitled "Have a look at this, if you still want to live," Fu said he had received "inside information from a friend at the national earthquake administration that said there was a 90 percent chance a quake will hit."

Fu was detained for five days by the public security bureau in his home county, Shouyang.

Li Jinrong, a 35-year-old migrant worker from Jinzhong City, admitted he sent text messages to his friends on Feb. 20 saying a 6.0-magnitude earthquake was going to hit Shanxi Province the next day. Police detained Li for seven days in Jinzhong City. Li said his text message was based on hearsay.

Twenty-year-old Han Yueyue, a native of eastern Anhui Province who was working in Shanxi's provincial capital, Taiyuan, was detained for 10 days for sending text messages in the name of the local earthquake administration and mobile communications service operator.

In his message sent on Feb. 22, Han said an earthquake was going to hit Taiyuan that night and warned everyone to "be on guard in order to minimize casualties."

Zhang Xin, 20, a native of Shanxi Province who worked in Beijing as a migrant worker, was detained for 10 days and fined 500 yuan (73.5 U.S. dollars) for posting quake rumors and fake casualty reports at Baidu.com.

Zhang published the same posting several times on Feb. 21. The posting said 36 people had died in quakes and forecast at least 30 aftershocks in the coming three days.

The fake death toll was exaggerated to 1 million in Internet postings by Zhu Hongguo, a 24-year-old worker in Shanxi's Pingding County.

Zhu was detained for 10 days and fined 500 yuan.

The quake rumors prompted tens of thousands of panic-stricken residents into the streets in at least five Shanxi Province cities on Feb. 20 and 21. Many people spent the night outdoors.