Disaster, demolition footage falsely linked to Taiwan earthquake in April 2024
A video compilation of old disaster footage and building demolition clips was shared in social media posts falsely claiming it showed the impact of an earthquake that struck Taiwan in April 2024, the island's strongest in 25 years. While the video contained genuine footage from the temblor, most of the clips show disasters in the United States and Indonesia, as well as demolitions of high-rise structures in China.
"Disaster in Taiwan earthquake and tornado same time," reads a TikTok video posted on April 3, 2024, racking up more than 12 million views.
The minute-long video shows various clips, including a fire vortex apparently ripping through buildings, residents fleeing as a huge smoke column billows over a village, along with several scenes of high-rise buildings collapsing.
Sticker text overlaid on the video says: "Taiwan today".
Two of the clips of a red building tilted at a precarious angle genuinely show the impact of the magnitude-7.4 earthquake in Hualien in eastern Taiwan -- the epicentre of the tremor that struck on April 3, 2024.
Workers are rushing to demolish the glass-fronted Uranus building, which has become a symbol of the island's biggest quake in 25 years -- leaving at least 13 people dead and more than 1,140 others injured.
The compilation was shared elsewhere on Facebook by Philippine-based users here, here and here.
However, most of the clips are unrelated to the Taiwan earthquake.
Old disaster clips
A reverse image search using keyframes from the first clip of a purported tornado found it corresponds to the 59:25 mark of a YouTube video from March 8, 2017 (archived link).
The tornado has been digitally added to the original footage -- posted by a channel called Tornado Trackers -- which was taken during Hurricane Matthew in 2016, according to the description.
The storm struck the southeastern US state of Florida in October 2016, killing four people, AFP reported.
AFP geolocated the video to Florida's Jacksonville Beach. The row of shops in the video can be seen on Google Street View imagery (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the manipulated footage in the false posts (left) and the original video on Tornado Trackers (right):
The second clip of people fleeing a huge column of ash corresponds to a TikTok video posted in December 2021, which the user said showed the eruption of Indonesia's Mount Semeru (archived link).
The same clip was used in a news report about the eruption in East Java which killed at least 48 people and left streets filled with mud and ash, forcing nearly 10,000 people to seek refuge (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the footage in the false posts (left) and the TikTok video (right):
Old demolition videos
Three of the clips showing collapsing buildings in fact show demolitions in the southern Chinese city of Kunming in Yunnan province.
AFP has debunked similar posts that falsely linked the clips to the April 2024 earthquake in Taiwan.
The compilation also featured footage from three separate demolitions across China.
Reverse image searches on Baidu found one of the clips matches a video published by the state-owned CCTV's video news agency on YouTube on November 15, 2015 (archived link).
According to the video's description, the 26-storey building in the northwestern city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province had never been used before its demolition.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip in the false post (left) and the CCTV video (right):
Similar images of the building's demolition were published by state news agency Xinhua in November 2015 (archived link).
Another clip of a high-rise building on a beach crashing to the ground matches scenes from a video posted on Weibo on October 31, 2020 by the Communist Party-run Beijing News (archived link).
The video's simplified Chinese caption says three buildings in a development project in the southern island province of Hainan were demolished after it was constructed before receiving a permit.
A similar video was also shared on Chinese blog site Meipian by an account that publishes 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 last clip showing another beachside property collapsing 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, reclaimed by law last year."
The report states the land in China's eastern Shandong province would be reused to build a hotel and convention centre.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the video published by The Paper (right):
Similar images of the demolition were also published by the National Business Daily in May 2018 (archived link).
AFP has debunked other false claims about the Taiwan earthquake here and here.
