Month-old clip of Bangkok skyscraper collapse resurfaces after tremors in Chiang Mai

Published on April 24, 2025 at 10:33
3 min read
By Pasika KHERNAMNUOY, AFP Thailand

After minor quakes were recorded in northern Thailand on April 21, an old video was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed the tremors had brought down a building. Local officials told AFP that no high-rise buildings were damaged by the tremors. The video in fact shows a skyscraper collapsing in Bangkok during the catastrophic 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Thailand and Myanmar a month earlier.

"Today on April 21, 2025 -- building collapse in Chiang Mai," reads the Thai-language text superimposed on a Facebook reel viewed more than 324,000 times.

The video shows people on a crowded street scrambling away from a billowing dust cloud.

It was shared after minor tremors were felt in several northern Thai provinces, including Chiang Mai, on April 21 (archived here and here).

The tremors were recorded less than a month after a catastrophic 7.7-magnitude quake in neighbouring Myanmar that also badly shook the kingdom on March 28 (archived link).

Screenshot of the false post, taken on April 22, 2025

The same footage was also shared elsewhere on TikTok and YouTube, and in other languages such as Burmese and Khmer, in posts that claimed it was filmed in Chiang Mai on April 21.

But Dusit Pongsapipat, head of the Department of Natural Disaster Prevention and Mitigation in Chiang Mai, said the posts were peddling "false information".

"There have been no reports of any building collapses in Chiang Mai either during the March 28 quake or on April 21," he told AFP on April 23.

According to the US Geological Survey, low-magnitude tremors such as those recorded on April 21 are generally not felt by residents or significant enough to cause any structural damage (archived link).

Keyword searches led to a similar video posted on TikTok on March 28, when an under-construction skyscraper in Bangkok collapsed after the 7.7-magnitude quake (archived here and here).

The TikTok video has matching visuals and includes hashtags linking the footage to a popular shopping area in the Thai capital.

Screenshot comparisons of the falsely shared video (left) and the March 28 TikTok video (right), with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP

AFP geolocated the street shown in the video to a shopping mall in Bangkok across the road from the high-rise building that collapsed on March 28 (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and Google Street View imagery from Bangkok (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP

AFP has debunked other false claims linked to the March 28 quake here.

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