A video on Facebook (FB) misleadingly spliced together footage of old earthquakes in Japan with actual clips of the deadly quake that shook the country on New Year’s Day.
The video published on Jan. 1 by an Indian-managed FB page made the rounds among Filipinos this week. A part of its caption read:
“A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck central Japan today, January 1, 2024, causing a tsunami. A tsunami about 1 meter high hit part of the coast of the Sea of Japan, and a larger wave of up to 5 meters is expected…
The footage shows damage to houses and other infrastructure; more details will be known later.”
The text “Japan, 1 jan 2024” was superimposed on the two-minute video compilation. It claimed to show footage taken during and after a magnitude 7.6 tremor struck Japan on New Year’s Day.
While some of the videos were indeed taken during the earthquake, a reverse image search has shown that several were not recent.
At least four of the clips shown are old videos capturing the destruction brought by the infamous magnitude 9.1 earthquake that hit the country in 2011.
Note: Click on the photos to view their original sources.
Some netizens under the comment section of the spurious video pointed out that a few of the clips shown were not taken during the recent earthquake.
The video was posted on the day a powerful earthquake rocked Japan, resulting in hundreds of homes destroyed and at least 62 people dead.
FB page ayushi kumari (created on Aug. 2, 2023) published the video, garnering over 1,500 reactions, 100 comments, 1,700 shares and 92,000 views.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
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