Unrelated, Old Videos Peddled As Recent Earthquake In New Zealand
BOOM found that the visuals are not related to the recent earthquake at Kermadec Islands region in New Zealand.
Several old, unrelated videos of earthquakes and its aftermath are being shared on social media platforms with a false claim that the visuals show recent scenes from New Zealand's Kermadec Islands after the region encountered multiple earthquakes in the past few days.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) on March 16 reported that the Kermadec Islands region faced a powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale. The National Emergency Management Agency, however in a tweet, clarified the reports of Tsunami warnings to the country and denied its possibility mentioning a strong or long earthquake neutralises the threat.
The unrelated videos began circulating amid such reports.
Video 1
India Today group's north-east based news portal India Today NE tweeted a video of water splashing from a swimming pool claiming that the visuals are from New Zealand after the quake hit Kermadec Islands on March 16.
The video can be seen below.
News website One India, other social media users also posted the video claiming the same.
Video 2
Another video showing a group of people losing their balance and falling on ground due to earthquake tremors has been shared as New Zealand.
Such posts can be viewed here and here.
Video 3
An aerial footage that captures several destroyed buildings is also circulating as scenes from New Zealand after the powerful quake jolted the country.
Click here and here to view the posts.
Video 4
Some social media users posted a video showing massive flood sweeping away cars parked on roads claiming to be from New Zealand.
Click here to view one such post.
Fact Check
BOOM found that the videos are not related to the earthquake that shook New Zealand's Kermadec Islands region.
Video 1
We broke the video into keyframes and performed a reverse image search on it. The search led us to the same video uploaded on a YouTube channel on April 25, 2015, mentioning it to be from a hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Taking a cue, we ran a related keyword search and found a report by The Independent published on May 12, 2015, carrying a screengrab of the now viral video.
The report states, "A video has emerged showing a “mini tsunami” in a hotel swimming pool during the massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal last month. The clip was captured by a Dutch couple as they swam in a hotel pool in Kathmandu. Luckily, most of the swimmers had exited the pool before the main tremors launched water out of the pool."
Video 2
A reverse image search on a keyframe from the video led us to multiple Taiwanese news articles from September 2022 reporting about the video.
The news reports referred to a Facebook post from September 18, 2022, carrying the video and mentioned that it shows a glimpse of a 6.8- magnitude earthquake took place in Taiwan at that time.