Fact Check: 2011 Japan tsunami video FALSELY shared as from Indonesia
A video showing a destructive tsunami after an earthquake in Indonesia went viral on social media. However, the video in circulation is not from Indonesia, but is CCTV footage from the Japan tsunami in 2011.
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India Today Fact Check
The video in circulation is not from Indonesia, but is CCTV footage from the Japan tsunami in 2011.
A terrifying video viral on social media supposedly shows a tsunami in Indonesia. One person wrote, while sharing this video on Twitter, “Few seconds before Tsunami & when it hits.” The archived version of this post can be seen here.
AFWA's investigation found no link between the viral clip and Indonesia. The original video shows the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
AFWA Probe
A reverse image search revealed that the video has been popular for years. A YouTube video uploaded in 2014 purports to show the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
A further YouTube search revealed another video posted on April 11, 2013. The video was shared with the note "This tsunami footage was recorded on CCTV cameras that were placed along Route 45 in Iwate Prefecture. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) published it in the sped-up form because the original videos were in very low frame rate." This video contained the viral clip.
The video’s description mentioned Ozawa in Yamada. The Japanese text at the bottom of the video also specified the location. Yamada is a region in northeast Japan.
We then searched the area on Google Maps and found several similarities between the original video and the area visible in Google Street View. Signal lines on the road and the building on the right are similar. Given below is a comparison.
The area was rebuilt after the tsunami. The latest satellite image available on Google Earth shows this.
The video was also previously fact-checked by AFP when a tsunami hit Indonesia in 2018.
Thus, we were able to conclude that this video is not from Indonesia at all.
(With Inputs from Ashish Kumar)
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