Video shows Japan mudslide in 2021, not Libya floods in 2023

"Oh My God Save The Country of Libya. Ameen," reads text on a Facebook reel shared here on September 13, 2023.

The clip -- viewed over 4,000 times -- shows a mudslide ripping down a hill dotted with buildings, toppling power lines and engulfing infrastructure.

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Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on September 20, 2023

The video was also shared with similar claims on Facebook here and here, where it was viewed more than 570,000 times.

On September 10, torrential rains from Storm Daniel burst two dams upstream from Libya's coastal city of Derna, sending a wall of water crashing through the city centre that razed entire neighbourhoods.

The latest catastrophe to strike the oil-rich North African country has unleashed a global aid effort as the flash flood killed at least 3,000 people, with thousands more missing.

The clip circulating online, however, is unrelated to the disaster in Libya.

Japan mudslide

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the clip led to a video compilation posted on YouTube on July 3, 2021 by Japanese newspaper Sankei News (archived link).

The first clip in the compilation is a longer version of the footage used in the false posts, and is credited to wire agency EyePress (archived link).

The video's caption indicates it shows a mudslide sweeping through the Izusan neighbourhood of Atami, a town in Japan's Shizuoka prefecture, on July 3, 2021.

AFP reported that torrents of mud crashed through part of the town following days of heavy rain.

The town, around 90 kilometres (55 miles) southwest of Tokyo, saw rainfall of 313 millimetres in the 48 hours prior to the mudslide -- higher than the average monthly total for July of 242.5 millimetres, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Other international news organisations also covered the mudslide in reports here, here and here that contained similar footage and photos (archived links here, here and here).

A keyword search on Google led to an article published on the Climate Adaptation Platform site on July 8, 2021 that includes a map -- credited to the Japan's Geospatial Information Authority -- showing the landslide's trajectory (archived links here and here).

A subsequent search on the Geospatial Information Authority website led to an article with several images and maps detailing the mudslide (archived link).

This information allowed AFP to pinpoint the location shown in the video circulating on social media on Google Maps (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the location as seen in Google Maps (right), with a distinctive red building highlighted in both by AFP:

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Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the false post (left) and the location as seen in Google Maps (right)

AFP has previously debunked misinformation around the Libyan floods including posts in Spanish that have misrepresented the Japan mudslide video here.