Hoax posts about 'December 2024 Philippine quake' misuse old photos
- Published on December 19, 2024 at 09:42
- 4 min read
- By Jan Cuyco, AFP Philippines
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"Strong earthquake shook different parts of the country this afternoon!" read a Tagalog-language Facebook post on December 7, 2024.
It went on to claim that a 6.8-magnitude quake struck General Santos City in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
The post shared three photos that showed scattered debris, a collapsed ceiling and the damaged facade of a low-rise building.
Other Facebook pages here, here and here reshared the photos alongside the same claim -- earlier debunked by Philippine fact-checking organisation Vera Files (archived link).
Earthquakes regularly hit the Philippines, which is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of intense seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin (archived link).
Most are too weak to be felt by humans but strong and destructive quakes come at random with no technology available to predict when and where they will happen.
The state seismology agency Phivolcs' verified X account did not report any 6.8-magnitude earthquake in the Philippines on December 7 and only recorded several minor tremors in the archipelago that day (archived links here and here).
Misused pictures
Google reverse image searches found the photos in the posts were taken from old reports about a powerful quake that struck the southern Philippines in November 2023 (archived link).
The first photo -- which shows an empty shopping cart surrounded by debris -- was published by Philippine news outlet ABS-CBN News on X on November 17, 2023 (archived link).
Its Tagalog-language caption said it showed scenes inside a shopping mall in General Santos City after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the photo published by ABS-CBN News (right):
The second photo of a collapsed ceiling of a shopping centre can be found in AFP's photo archives of the November 2023 quake (archived link).
"This handout photo obtained on November 17, 2023 from the Facebook page of Shaira Ann Sandigan-Rodrigo, shows a damaged ceiling at a shopping mall in General Santos City in South Cotabato after a strong magnitude 6.7 earthquake shook the southern Philippines," the caption said.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the photo distributed by AFP (right):
Finally, the third photo -- which shows a partially damaged exterior of a blue building -- was earlier shared in a Facebook post on November 17, 2023 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the Facebook photo (right):
Further keyword searches led to videos featuring the same damaged building, which were published by local news outlets Manila Bulletin and Bombo Radyo PH on the same day (archived links here and here).
According to Bombo Radyo PH's caption, the damaged building corresponded to a shopping mall in Koronadal City in Mindanao (archived link).
AFP has debunked posts falsely depicting impact of Philippine earthquakes here, here and here.
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