Altered satellite image does not show Philippines blackout

The edited satellite image shows night lights scattered across the Philippines, except for one island in the middle of the archipelago, which is pitch black.

"Only Panay Island can relate," reads a Facebook post which shared the map on January 2.

That day, residents on the central Philippine island of Panay were left without power following a massive outage (archived link). 

The country's power grid operator said just four of the island's 13 power plants were working by nightfall, and it took three days to restore power completely (archived links here and here).

Lawmakers have announced an investigation into the blackout (archived link).

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Screenshot of false post, taken January 23, 2024

The altered satellite image was shared in similar Facebook posts here, here and here. 

Old satellite picture

A reverse image search of the satellite image led to NASA's Black Marble Project, which observes night lights around the Earth to monitor urbanisation, light pollution and disasters such as fires (archived link). 

A search on the project's website found the original version of the satellite image dated November 1, 2016 (archived link).

The original satellite image shows night lights over Panay Island, contrary to the altered satellite image which shows the affected island in pitch black. 

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Original satellite image taken by NASA on November 1, 2016, showing Panay Island

Zhuosen Wang, an associate research scientist at NASA, told AFP that the altered satellite image shared on Facebook was taken from a composite image of Philippine night lights compiled using data from 2012-13 and 2016-17 -- years before the blackout in January 2024.

This composite image was created by merging several cloud-free night-time images of the Philippines taken from that period, Wang explained.

The image was subsequently altered and shared on Facebook.

Ariel Blanco, director of space information infrastructure at the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), said the image circulating on Facebook was manipulated to remove Panay Island. 

He provided AFP with a screenshot of the edited satellite image shared on Facebook (below left) and PhilSA's image analysis showing signs of alteration (below right): 

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Screenshot comparison of the edited satellite image shared on Facebook (left) and PhilSA's image analysis showing signs of alteration (right)

2024 satellite image

A check with NASA's Worldview map -- which shows an almost real-time view of night lights around the globe -- revealed faint lights coming from Panay Island on the night of January 2 (archived link). 

Below is a screenshot of the Panay Island on January 2 from NASA Worldview, where urban areas are depicted in yellow.

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Screenshot of the Panay Island on January 2, 2024 from NASA Worldview. Urban areas are depicted in yellow. 

Wang added that January 2 map showed yellow patches around the island because of the moon phase that day. 

AFP has previously debunked altered images and videos circulating in the Philippines, such as here, here and here.