Old Philippine earthquake video falsely shared as recent Indonesia quake

"Breaking: A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia on Thursday morning," reads an Indonesian-language caption on a TikTok video posted on April 2.

"The tremors were strongly felt in Manado and surrounding areas in North Sulawesi, causing residents to panic and rush out of their homes."

The post shared a clip showing several people taking cover as the room shakes and the ceiling collapses shortly before it goes dark.

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Screenshot of false post, taken on April 7, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

A person can be heard saying "hide, hide!" and "enough already, lord" in local Visayan -- a major language in the Philippines.

The clip also shared on TikTok and in posts in Malay and English.

The posts circulated after a 7.4-magnitude struck eastern Indonesia on April 2, killing one person, damaging buildings and sending people running into the streets in panic (archived link).

Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center ( PTWC ) initially said hazardous tsunami waves were possible within 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) of the epicentre along the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, but the warning was subsequently lifted.

However, the circulating footage is unrelated to the Indonesian earthquake. 

A reverse image search using keyframes found several matching clips published in local media reports, including one posted by Philippine cable TV DZRH News Television on October 10, 2025 (archived links here and here).

The post was captioned: "Earthquake in Davao Oriental. A magnitude 7.5–7.6 earthquake shook parts of Davao Oriental this Friday morning, October 10."

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Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the video posted by local media outlet DZRH News Television

The October 10 quake killed at least eight people in southern Philippines and left many others homeless. Witnesses and officials said the quake caused only minor damage, while the Philippine seismology office reported more than 300 aftershocks (archived link).

An AFP journalist confirmed the audio heard in the video is Visayan, a language widely spoken in central and southern Philippines.

DZRH credited the video to a Facebook account belonging to a user called "Resty Polinio" who has since changed the account name to "Rhouien Polinio".

A search of the user’s account found the same video shared on October 11, a day after the quake. In the comments, the user said he had deleted the previous video at his employer’s request  (archived link).

AFP contacted the user but has not received a response at the time of publication.

AFP has debunked misinformation related to natural disasters here.