Fact Check: Video of water sloshing back and forth during earthquake is from Japan, not Taiwan

Hyderabad: On April 3, Hualien City in Taiwan was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale. The earthquake claimed nine lives and over 1000 were injured. Amid this, the internet is flooded with visuals from Taiwan. Some real and several old videos are being shared across social media.

One such video showing a turbulent water body is widely circulated on social media. Users claim it to be the trail of destruction in Taiwan. (Archive)

We found the same visual to be uploaded by ABP Majha on their Web story section.

The video is circulated with the caption: “‘Video: A Taiwanese driver stopped their car during today's earthquake and observed river water swaying back and forth.#Taipei | #Taiwan #Earthquake #Tsunami #TaiwanEarthquake #China #ishigaki #Hualien #Japan #Terremoto #OKINAWA.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the video shows a sight from an earthquake that jolted Japan on January 1, 2024.

We ran the keyframes from the viral video through a reverse image search and found a report on a Chinese website Sanli News Network. The report was titled 7.6 strong earthquake in Japan. A `huge whirlpool appears’ off the coast of Ishikawa, turning wildly clockwise and causing the water surface of the river to shake significantly’ was published dated January 1, 2024.

According to the report, a strongly felt earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 occurred on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan at 4:06 pm on January 1, and tsunami warnings were issued in many places. Japanese people have exposed images of the earthquake on the Internet one after another. Some netizens witnessed a `huge whirlpool’ appearing on the sea, and even the river was shaking alarmingly.

The same visuals were also found uploaded on the Turkish website `Yanicag Gazetesi’ on the same day.

We also found the viral video on Yahoo! News dated January 3, 2024. The report states that Rie Yakushi(a Japanese resident), who recorded the video, said she was on the way to her parents’ house in Toyama prefecture. It was `scary’ to see the water `shaking so much’.

The report also mentions the sad demise of at least 65 people during the Japan earthquake.

Not only this, but we also found the same visuals on Reddit titled, “Water in a river moving violently during the earthquake in Japan” dated January 1, 2024.

A further search led us to a photo library of a report by Daily Mail. We found the still from the viral video uploaded on January 1 with the description, “Waves can be seen sloshing through the middle of the city following the earthquake, an unsettling reminder that a large tsunami could be on its way.”

Lastly, through our search, we found the viral video uploaded by multiple social media users including Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram marking it to be from Japan’s earthquake that hit the NOTO peninsula on January 1.

With our investigation, it is evident that the viral video is from an earthquake that took place in Japan in January, not Taiwan.