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An earthquake of about 7.2 magnitude hit Tajikistan near its border with China on Thursday, however there are no reports of casualties.
Several videos and images are circulating on social media with users claiming them to be from the earthquake in Tajikistan. Newschecker found many videos that were unrelated to the earthquake in Tajikistan being shared in false context.
A Twitter user shared a video in which a man can be seen saving what appear to be alcohol bottles during the earthquake. ‘Earthquake in Afghanistan and Tajikistan’ the caption of the video reads.
To ascertain the facts, Newschecker fragmented the video into keyframes and performed a reverse image search on some keyframes and found several reports carrying screengrabs from the same video.
We found a report published by Max Maharashtra dated June 13, 2022 carrying the screengrabs from the viral video under the title ‘Earthquake tremors in Meghalaya; This funny video went viral, a person was seen handling liquor bottles like this’.
Another report we found on TV9Hindi dated 13 June 2022, carrying the image from the viral video stating that the video went viral after an earthquake of 4 magnitude hit Meghalaya.
A Twitter user named News To Day or @baysarov85 shared a video that seemed to show CCTV footage of inside an airport with the caption ‘Images of earthquake in Tajikistan: according to updated data, there were 2 earthquakes: the first magnitude 6.8 at 05:37 local time, the second 5,0 at 05:55’.
On flipping the two images, we can observe the captions read “Domestic Pre Departure Entrance” and “Pre Departure Area International”
To check the authenticity of the claim Newschecker fragmented the video into keyframes and conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes, but couldn’t get any satisfying results.
Then we conducted a keyword search on ‘YouTube and found the viral video on verified YouTube channel Gadget Addict uploaded on April 24, 2019. ‘Clark International Airport resumes operations at 4PM today, 24th April 2019 – after suffering some damage from the 6.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the Philippines on 22nd April 2019’, the description of the video reads.
Further, the publisher of the post provides additional information regarding the clip. The description states that the footage is taken from “DOTr-CIAC” and also mentions that the clips have been edited by the publisher. These can be seen below.
On looking for DOTr-CIAC on Google, we found more details pointing us to the Clark International airport.
The CIAC refers to The Clark International Airport Corporation which according to its website is a non-chartered Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC), duly registered with the Securities & Exchange Commission. It was created primarily to develop, operate, manage and maintain the Clark Civil Aviation Complex within the Clark Freeport Zone in the province of Pampanga.
A press release on the same website dated January 9th , 2023 reads “The DOTr (Department of Transport) is the agency which exercises policy and operational supervision over CIAC while the private consortium Luzon International Premier Airport Development Corp. (LIPAD) operates the Clark airport.”
In addition, another a YouTube channel belonging to the UNTV, described on its page as the flagship Philippine television network of the Progressive Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), had clearer visuals of the same video which clearly show the time and date as 22nd April 2019 at 5.11 pm and 4.57 pm on the top left corner, something that has been covered up by using logos in the recently viral video
Using the above information we can definitively conclude that the visuals are not from the recent Tajikistan Earthquake and are from the Philippines.
Our Sources
Report by Max Maharashtra Dated June 13, 2022
Report by TV9Hindi Dated June 13, 2022
Video by YouTube channel Gadget Addict Dated April 24, 2019
Video by YouTube channel UNTV News and Rescue Dated 25, 2019
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Vasudha Beri
January 25, 2025
Kushel HM
January 25, 2025
Vasudha Beri
January 8, 2025
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