Disaster and demolition footage erroneously linked to the April 2024 Taiwan earthquake

A video collage of old disaster footage and building demolition clips was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed to show the impact of the April 2024 earthquake in Taiwan, the strongest quake to hit the island in 25 years. While the video contained real footage of the earthquake, most of the clips show disasters in the United States and Indonesia, as well as the demolition of high-rise buildings in China.

“Disaster in Taiwan earthquake and typhoon at the same time,” reads a TikTok video posted on April 3, 2024, with more than 12 million views.

The one-minute video shows various clips, including what appears to be a fiery spiral engulfing buildings, residents fleeing as a huge plume of smoke rises over a village, along with several scenes of high-rise buildings collapsing.

The text of the poster on the video says: “Taiwan Today.”

Two clips of a red building leaning at a precarious angle show the impact of the 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the eastern Taiwanese city of Hualien – the epicenter of the April 3, 2024 quake.

Workers are rushing to demolish the glass-fronted Uranus building, which has become a symbol of the island's largest earthquake in 25 years – killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 1,140 others.

Screenshot of false post taken on April 8, 2024.

The collection has been shared elsewhere on Facebook by Philippines-based users here , here , and here .

However, most of the clips have nothing to do with the Taiwan earthquake.

Old disaster clips

A reverse image search using keyframes from the first clip of the alleged tornado found that it matched the 59:25 mark of a YouTube video dated March 8, 2017 (archived link).

The tornado was digitally added to the original footage — posted by a channel called Tornado Trackers — that was captured during Hurricane Matthew in 2016, according to the description.

Agence France-Presse reported that the storm struck the southeastern state of Florida in October 2016, killing four people.

Agence France-Presse geolocated the video to Jacksonville Beach in Florida. The row of stores in the video can be seen on Google Street View images (archived link).

Here's a comparison screenshot of the manipulated footage in the false posts (left) and the original video on Tornado Trackers (right):

Screenshot comparison of manipulated footage in false posts (left) and original video on Tornado Trackers (right)

The second clip of people fleeing a huge plume of ash corresponds to a TikTok video posted in December 2021, which the user said showed the eruption of Mount Semeru volcano in Indonesia (archived link).

The same clip was used in a news report about a volcanic eruption in East Java that killed at least 48 people and left streets filled with mud and ash, forcing nearly 10,000 people to seek shelter (archived link).

Here's a comparison screenshot of the shots in the fake posts (left) and the TikTok video (right):

Screenshot comparison of screenshots found in fake posts (left) and video from TikTok (right)

Old demolition videos

Three of the clips showing collapsed buildings actually show demolitions in the southern Chinese city of Kunming in Yunnan province.

Agence France-Presse revealed similar posts that incorrectly linked the clips to the April 2024 earthquake in Taiwan.

The collection also included footage from three separate demolitions across China.

Reverse image searches on Baidu found that one of the clips matched a video posted by state-owned video news agency CCTV on YouTube on November 15, 2015 (archived link).

According to the video description, the 26-storey building in the northwestern city of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, had never been used before it was demolished.

Below is a comparative screenshot of the clip in the false post (left) and the CCTV video (right):

Comparing the screenshot of the clip in the false post (left) and the CCTV video (right)

The state-run Xinhua News Agency published similar photos of the building's demolition in November 2015 (archived link).

Another clip of a high-rise building on the beach collapsing to the ground matches scenes from a video posted on Weibo on October 31, 2020 by the Communist Party-run newspaper Beijing News (archived link).

The video's simplified Chinese caption says three buildings in a development project in the southern island province of Hainan have been demolished after being constructed without a permit.

A similar video was also shared on Chinese blog site Meipian by an account that posts official government releases (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the video uploaded on Meipian (right):

The final clip showing the collapse of another beachfront property corresponds to footage published by state-owned digital news site The Paper on May 27, 2018 (archived link).

The headline reads: “Demolished buildings in Yantai left unfinished for nearly 10 years, restored by law last year.”

The report indicates that the land located in Shandong Province, eastern China, will be reused to build a hotel and conference center.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the video published by The Paper (right):

Screenshot comparison was taken on April 9, 2024.

National Business Daily also published similar photos of the demolition in May 2018 (archived link).

AFP has debunked other false claims about the Taiwan earthquake here and here.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.yahoo.com/news/disaster-demolition-footage-falsely-linked-091746550.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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