Social media users had shared an old video from Taiwan, claiming that it showed the recent earthquake in Indonesia at the moment of impact.
A video taken in Taiwan was falsely shared as a video of the earthquake that occured in Indonesia on January 10
By Jyoti Dwivedi: Indonesia was rattled by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in the early hours of January 10. The epicentre of this earthquake was 427 kilometres south of the Indonesian island of Ambon at a depth of 95 kilometres. Following this, a video allegedly showing the tremors has gone viral on social media.
The video shows four people standing in a forest clearing when the ground starts shaking vigorously, causing one of them to fall. Those sharing the video claimed it showed the recent earthquake in Indonesia.
News Nation journalist Rahul Sisodia shared this video on Twitter with the caption, “A powerful 7.7-magnitude #earthquake in #Indonesia was caught on camera.” The archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
Times Now Navbharat also used this video in its report about the recent Indonesian earthquake. An archived version can be seen here.
AFWA found that this video shows tremors that were felt in Taiwan in September 2022.
AFWA Probe
A reverse search of the viral video’s keyframes led us to a Yahoo News report from September 19, 2022. Per this report, this video was first shared by the ‘Zhuoxi Township Mountaineering Association’ on Facebook. Zhuoxi Township is a mountain indigenous township in Hualien County, Taiwan. Reportedly, when the earthquake occurred, the members of the mountaineering group were at an altitude of 1,000 metres.
Using a keyword search, we found that the Zhuoxi Township Mountaineering Association had posted this video on Facebook on September 18, 2022. The association stated that when this earthquake hit, its members were working on a flora and fauna course on Zhuoxi Mountain.
Taiwanese and Chinese news portals like Setn.com, Ftvnews.com.tw, and Ettoday.net also reported on this video in September 2022.
According to a New York Post report, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan on September 18, 2022. Its epicentre was Taitung County and it followed a 6.4 magnitude earthquake on September 17, 2022. As per Taiwan News, at least one person died and 146 were injured because of the earthquake.
It is also worth noting that the earthquake in Indonesia occurred at 2.47 am local time. In the viral video, daylight is clearly visible, something that would not be the case at close to three in the morning.
Thus, to sum up, a video of a 2022 earthquake in Taiwan was shared as footage from the recent quake in Indonesia.
