Fact Check: Old video from 2021 mass demolition of skyscrapers in China falsely shared as visuals from Taiwan earthquake

Hyderabad: On April 3, a massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 shook the east coast of Taiwan, particularly Hualien City, at 7:58 a.m. local time. According to the Taiwan National Fire Agency, the quake has claimed the lives of nine people, while 934 are still in critical condition. This earthquake is considered the strongest in 25 years, causing extensive damage in Taiwan, including collapsed buildings, power outages, and landslides. Initial tsunami warnings were also issued for Southern Japan and the Philippines.

Against this backdrop, a video depicting multiple skyscrapers collapsing in rapid succession is circulating widely on social media, with claims that it portrays scenes from the recent earthquake in Taiwan. (Archive)

The video is being shared with the caption, “BREAKING NEWS from #Taiwan. It's shocking incident, happened in Taiwan ! See the Skyscraper condition!#Taipei #earthquake”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the video is from China's 2021 demolition of 15 skyscrapers and is not related to the Taiwan earthquake.

We started our investigation by performing a reverse image search of the viral video’s keyframes. The search led us to a report by the media organization Mehr News Agency titled “Simultaneous demolition of 15 skyscrapers in China,” which featured stills from the viral video. This article was published on August 28, 2021, indicating that the video is not from the recent earthquake in Taiwan.

Additionally, a similar video was carried by the Chinese media outlet The Paper in 2021.

Moving forward, for further confirmation we ran a keyword search and found a similar video with the same Headline “15 buildings in China get demolished simultaneously” on the YouTube Channel of USA Today.

According to a report by India Times dated September 18, 2021, the viral video is said to be from Kunming city, where the buildings were demolished using 4.6 tonnes of explosives stored at 85,000 different blasting points around the building. The entire process took just 46 seconds.

To have a look at the legit visuals from Taiwan’s earthquake. Click here.

Hence, it is evident that the viral video of buildings collapsing is old and unrelated to the Taiwan earthquake.