The post contains 64 seconds of footage showing different incidents of earthquakes and buildings collapsing.
The same claim was also shared here.
Taiwan earthquakes
Taiwan was shaken by a deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake on April 3, 2024, which the government said was the “strongest in 25 years”. It caused landslides that blocked roads and severely damaged buildings in badly-hit Hualien county, on the east coast of Taiwan (archived here).
On April 22-23, 2024, Taiwan was again rocked by several earthquakes that the government said were aftershocks from the initial quake (archived here). Two of the strongest of these measured 6.1 and 6.0 in magnitude, according to the US Geological Survey, and caused some buildings to sway and others to topple.
However, AFP Fact Check established that the footage is a compilation of six different old clips unrelated to the aftershock earthquakes in Taiwan on April 22.
old clips
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.
Search results for the first clip reveal that it indeed shows an earthquake in Taiwan, but not the aftershocks on April 22. It was filmed during the initial major quake that hit Hualien county on April 3, 2024.
The clip was published (archived here) on April 3 by “CGTN Frontline”, a Facebook account affiliated with Chinese state-owned broadcaster CGTN.
The second clip has been shared online in connection to an earthquake in Japan that occurred on January 1, 2024.
The clip was published on YouTube in late January 2024 here and here.
At the time, the footage was also published by Indian media and captioned: “Footage of recent earthquake in Japan…”.
The earthquake that struck part of central Japan on January 1, 2024, left at least 200 people dead (archived here).
The third clip shows demolition works carried out in China in 2018.
A longer version of the clip was originally published by The Paper, a Chinese state-affiliated news site (archived here).
According to the report, the footage shows four skyscrapers undergoing a controlled demolition in Yantai, in China’s Shandong province.
The fourth clip also shows a controlled demolition, this time in Lingao county in China’s Hainan province in 2020.
The clip was published in November 2020 on the Chinese social media platform Meipian, by an account that regularly publishes government official statements, along with other clips showing the demolition works from different angles (archived here).
Chinese media outlets also reported on the demolition here and here (archived here and here).
The fifth clip again shows skyscrapers being demolished in China, this time in 2021.
A longer version of the clip was published by the American news organization USA Today on August 31, 2021 (archived here).
The clip is captioned as “15 buildings in China get demolished simultaneously”.
According to Chinese state media Global Times, 15 buildings were demolished (archived here) in Kunming, the capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province, on August 27, 2021. They were originally constructed for residential purposes and were unfinished.
AFP Fact Check had previously debunked the fourth and fifth clips here.
The sixth clip shows a restaurant shaking during an earthquake in Taiwan in 2022.
The footage was originally published by the YouTube channel of Formosa TV News (FTV), a digital television network in Taiwan (archived here).
The translation of text accompanying the clip indicates it was filmed during an earthquake on September 18, 2022.
“The earthquake yesterday afternoon (18th) violently shook the crystal chandelier at a hotel in Kaohsiung. Just as customers were fleeing for their lives, a female staff member calmly asked everyone to stand on one side,” the text reads.
That day, a strong earthquake hit southeastern Taiwan, causing buildings to collapse (archived here).
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked multiple claims about earthquakes in different countries, such as here and here.
Tags: Compilation disaster clips unrelated earthquake Taiwan April
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