Famim Ahmed

Researcher, Dismislab
Japan’s 2 years old earthquake video circulated as the recent China-Tajikistan’s one
This article is more than 1 year old

Japan's 2 years old earthquake video circulated as the recent China-Tajikistan’s one

Famim Ahmed

Researcher, Dismislab

A video is being circulated on Facebook claiming to be the scene of an earthquake on the China-Tajikistan border.

On February 23, the video was posted on Facebook with the caption, “Today there is a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in the China-Tajikistan border area. This is like the beginning of the series of earthquakes before the doomsday said by the Prophet ﷺ”.

This video has been posted on various other Facebook pages and personal profiles with the same caption.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake actually occurred on February 23 at the China-Tajikistan border. Following this incident, the video was spread on social media.

However, Dismislab found that the viral video is old and has no relation with the recent China-Tajikistan border earthquake.

The video posted on Facebook has a watermark “LES INFOS DE TINO” on the top right. Putting this “LES INFOS DE TINO” on Google search, a TikTok channel of the same name is found with a username of @tino_sechet. The video was posted there on February 23.

A Google reverse image search using the keyframes of the video found a news report in the British newspaper Daily Mail, which also linked the same video. According to this report published on February 13, 2021, this is the scene of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake off the coast of eastern Japan.

Additionally, the official Facebook page of “A News” and Turkish news source TRT World also claimed that the footage was of the Fukushima earthquake in Japan.

You can find a screenshot comparing the video that went viral on Facebook and the video used in TRT World’s report below:

So,  the video is of the 2021 Fukushima earthquake in Japan, not the recent earthquake in the China-Tajikistan border.

Noting that, Japan Times, cited by Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management, reported one person was killed and 185 injured in the 2021 Fukushima earthquake. The impact of the earthquake destroyed a total of 3,112 houses.