Posts falsely claim photo of China river shows Fukushima wastewater release
- Published on September 13, 2023 at 11:06
- Updated on September 13, 2023 at 11:23
- 3 min read
- By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong
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"Japan's nuclear wastewater -- real incident," reads the Chinese-language caption of a false post uploaded to short-video platform Douyin on August 27, 2023.
The accompanying image shows dark liquid flowing from a building into a body of water.
A second image in the post, showing dark discharge flowing into the sea, has been debunked by AFP here and shows sewage spilling into Mexico's Acapulco Bay.
Japan's release of more than 500 Olympic swimming pools' worth of treated radioactive water into the Pacific began on August 24, and has since unleashed a wave of misinformation in China and neighbouring Korea.
Beijing has condemned the plan and banned all seafood imports from Japan, despite reassurances from both Japanese authorities and the UN nuclear watchdog.
The same image has been shared with similar false claims in other Douyin posts, as well as on TikTok, Chinese video site Bilibili, along with content-sharing sites Baijiahao and NetEase.
However, reverse image searches for the photo on Google followed by keyword searches found it was in fact captured in China.
Storm water
The image corresponds to a Douyin video uploaded on August 12, 2021 by Zhujiang News, a local media outlet in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong (archived link).
Chinese-language text overlaid on the video reads in part: "Secretly releasing polluted water into the sea? Shantou [authorities]: emergency discharge of storm water from pumping station."
Shantou is a city on the eastern coast of Guangdong (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo used in the false Douyin post (left) and the video uploaded by Zhujiang News (right):
The text in the video also states Zhujiang News received a tip-off from local residents who suspected dirty water was being secretly released into the bay, but local environmental authorities said the clip shows the city's Dongxia pumping station discharging water collected during a rainstorm.
According to weather reports at the time, the China Meteorological Administration had issued a storm warning starting from August 9, 2021 for several regions in China including Guangdong province (archived link).
AFP was able to geolocate the Dongxia pumping station using nearby landmarks mentioned in local media reports, and the building can be clearly seen on Google Earth.
A 2013 article by local newspaper Shantou Daily and an announcement in September 2021 by Shantou's ecology and environment department both mention that the pumping station is located at the intersection of two streets -- Dongxia South Road and Haibin Road (archived links here and here).
AFP also found other photos on Chinese app WeChat showing the pumping station from different angles (archived links here, here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo in the false Douyin post (left), the pumping station as seen on Google Earth (centre), and a photo of the facility posted by a user on social media (right):
AFP has debunked other false claims about the release of wastewater from Fukushima here, here, here and here.
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