Video shows New Year's Day quake in Japan, not tremor in August 2024

An old video of people crouching under the tables in a bowling alley has resurfaced in social media posts that falsely linked it to the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that shook southern Japan in August 2024. The video in fact was shot during a 7.5-magnitude quake that jolted central Japan on January 1, 2024.

"7.1 Magnitude earthquake hits Miyazaki Prefecture of Japan," read the Thai-language caption of a Facebook post on August 9.

The post, published in a group with more than 310,000 members, also shared a video with an English overlaid text that says the same.

The video shows people scrambling to find cover under the tables while monitors and bowling ball racks shake around them. 

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on August 19, 2024

The posts emerged online a day after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the Miyazaki prefecture in southwestern Japan on August 8, 2024. No major damage was reported and only relatively minor tsunami waves lashed the coast (archived link).

The country's weather agency said a huge earthquake was more likely in the aftermath of the jolt -- which left at least 15 people injured -- but the alert for the said megaquake has been lifted on August 15 (archived link). 

The same video has also been shared alongside similar claims in several languages including Korean, Filipino, Burmese and Chinese.

But the footage first circulated online in January 2024 and shows a separate earthquake incident in Ishikawa, a prefecture situated in central Japan.

January 1st quake

A reverse image search using the video's thumbnail along with keyword searches on Google found a similar longer footage published on the website of Getty Images (archived link).

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Screenshot of the original video on Getty Images, taken on August 19, 2024

Part of the caption read: "Japan: People Hide Under Tables At Bowling Alley In Ishikawa During M7.5 Earthquake. A strong earthquake hit the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on January 1."

The video was credited to Spectee, which describes itself as a UGC aggregation service provider specialising on real-time disaster communications in Japan (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the Facebook post (left) and the video published by Spectee (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the false posts (left) and the original video published by Spectee (right)

International media such as CNN and Al Jazeera also featured the same video in their reports about the earthquake that struck Japan on January 1 (archived links here and here).

AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to Japan's earthquake in August 2024 here, here, and here.