Posts falsely portray old Japan mudslide clips as aftermath of 2024 quake

Published on January 3, 2024 at 10:06
4 min read
By AFP Pakistan

After a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rattled Japan's western coast on January 1, 2024 and triggered tsunami waves more than a metre high, an old video of a mudslide sweeping away buildings has been falsely linked to the disaster on social media. In reality, the incident shown in the footage happened in Japan's eastern coastal city of Atami in July 2021 after days of heavy rain.

"Ohhhh...this is very scary , people screaming," reads the caption of the video shared on social media platform X on January 1, 2024. It includes a number of hashtags, such as "#earthquake", "#Japan", "#JapanEarthquake" and "#Tsunami."

The post has since been shared around 1,000 times.

The accompanying video contains clips that show a massive stream of mud and debris crashing through a hillside city, sweeping away buildings and power lines in its path.

A screenshot taken on January 2, 2024 of the false post on social media platform X.

The false post surfaced shortly after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck Ishikawa prefecture on Japan's western coast on New Year's Day, killing at least 62 people, officials said.

The quake toppled buildings, caused a major fire and tore apart roads, with rescuers scrambling to search for survivors as authorities warned of heavy rains and landslides.

Waves at least 1.2 metres (four feet) high have hit the port of Wajima in Ishikawa, and smaller tsunamis were reported elsewhere, but warnings of much larger waves proved unfounded and Japan lifted all tsunami warnings on January 2.

The same video was shared alongside similar false claims on X here, here and here, as well as on Facebook here and here.

But the video in fact shows torrents of mud that crashed through a part of the city of Atami in July 2021.

Atami is located on Japan's western coast, more than 320 kilometres (200 miles) away from the earthquake-hit Noto Peninsula.

Mud and debris

Users on X added context to the false post, pointing out the video appears to show a landslide in 2021 and adding a link to a YouTube video by Japanese media outlet Asahi Shimbun, posted on August 3, 2021 (archived link).

The video is titled: "[Moment] Video of Mudslide Taken by Residents of Atami City."

The footage shared alongside the false X post has been mirrored but otherwise matches the ones seen in the Asahi Shimbun YouTube video.

The video's description includes a link to an Asahi Shimbun report that states the mudslide occurred on July 3 after days of heavy rains, claiming two lives and leaving around 20 missing (archived link).

Much of Japan was at the time in its annual rainy season, which lasts several weeks and often causes floods and landslides, prompting local authorities to issue evacuation orders, AFP reported.

Below are screenshot comparisons of the video in one of the false posts (left) and the video posted by Asahi Shimbun (right):

Screenshot comparisons of the video in the false post (left) and the video posted by Asahi Shimbun (right)

A Google reverse image search using keyframes from the video in the false posts also found similar images published in a news report about the mudslides in Atami by Australian media outlet 9News on July 3, 2021 (archived link).

AFP was able to geolocate the area shown in the video using Google Street View images.

The scenes in the clips correspond to street view imagery here, here, here, here and here, in a hilly area of Atami that leads to the Izusan Port (archived links here, here, here, here and here).

Below are screenshot comparisons of scenes in the mudslide video (left) and the Google Street View images (right), with similarities marked by AFP:

Screenshot comparisons of scenes in the mudslide video (left) and the Google Street View images (right), with similarities marked by AFP

AFP has debunked other false posts linking old clips to the latest earthquake in Japan here and here.

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