| schema:text
| - Fact Check: NOT Indonesia's Mount Merapi eruption, this scary clip is half a decade old
India Today Fact Check found that the video in question dates back to 2018 and shows Mount Sinabung from Indonesia, not Merapi.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This video dates back to February 19, 2018, and captures the eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia.
Mount Merapi, a volcano situated in Indonesia, erupted on December 3. The eruption killed at least 22. A video allegedly showing the fated eruption has now gone viral. The clip shows gigantic clouds of smoke ascending into the sky and people running for their lives.
“Mount Marapi erupts in Indonesia. A couple of decades' worth of manmade CO2 emissions there in that image. But it won't get mentioned at COP28," read one post on X alongside the clip. "Mount Merapi erupted in Indonesia. 11 hikers perished in the blast," wrote a Facebook user. It was shared on Instagram as well.
India Today Fact Check found that the video is from 2018 and does not show Mount Merapi.
TRACING THE VIDEO
Upon reverse searching keyframes from the viral video, we came across the same clip shared on X on February 19, 2018. The Indonesian language post claimed that the visuals were from an eruption in Mount Sinabung, another active volcanic mountain in Indonesia.
In addition, it mentioned that the eruption occurred for the first time after 2014, and ash clouds reached as high as five kilometres in the sky.
A subsequent search with keywords on the eruption of Mount Sinabung in February 2018 led us to a Guardian report from February 20 the same year. Per this report, it was the largest eruption of that year and the cloud of ashes turned day into night in five nearby districts.
The official X account of the Indonesian news outlet Radio Elshinta featured the same video in a post on February 19, 2018, while highlighting that the eruption did not result in any immediate casualties, crediting the successful evacuation of all residents from the red zone.
Furthermore, we found that AFP and Misbar both debunked this video in March 2023, when it went viral purporting to show Mount Merapi erupting.
To sum up, it is clear that a more than five-year-old video from the Mount Sinabung eruption was falsely portrayed as an incident in Mount Merapi.
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)