Months-old Philippine earthquake video resurfaces after deadly tremor

Published on June 10, 2026 at 05:19
2 min read
By Pasika KHERNAMNUOY, AFP Thailand

Footage shared after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the southern Philippines on June 8, 2026 showed a collapsed school building and terrified pupils, but a video circulating online of students panicking inside an auditorium was not filmed during the disaster. The clip was filmed during a different quake that hit the country in October 2025, and was shared by local media at the time.

"It must have been terrifying inside the classroom. I don't want to imagine what would have happened if everything had collapsed. How many people would have survived?" says the Thai-language caption of an X video shared on June 8, 2026 with the hashtag "Philippines Earthquake".

The video appears to show students in an auditorium scrambling for cover, with some holding plastic chairs over their heads as others scream in panic.

Screenshot of the false post captured on June 10, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

The video was also shared in similar Facebook, Instagram and X posts in several languages.

It circulated after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the southern Philippines on June 8 and sparked tsunami warnings across the region (archived link). The quake killed at least 41 people, displaced thousands and left more than 450 injured (archived link).

Clips posted on social media and verified by AFP depict the impact of the earthquake on local schools, with one showing an unoccupied school building partially collapsing and another showing elementary school children crying as the ground shakes violently beneath them (archived link).

But the circulating video predates the June 2026 tremor.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage published by ABS-CBN News on their official Facebook account on October 10, 2025 (archived link).

Its caption reads: "An eyewitness video showed students at a school in Matina, Davao City beginning to panic as a strong earthquake rocked the auditorium Friday morning."

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the video posted by ABS-CBN News in October 2025

Other Philippine media outlets -- including DZRH News Television and 105.1 Brigada News FM Manila -- also shared the footage in reports about a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck off the southern Philippines on October 10, 2025 (archived here and here).

The quake killed at least 10 people according to official reports from government disaster agencies and left many others homeless (archived link).

The footage was credited to Facebook user John Louie Bagot.

Although the account has since been locked and the original post is no longer publicly accessible, an AFP fact-checker in Manila previously verified the video's authenticity and geolocated it to the Mapua Malayan Colleges in Davao City in the southern Philippines (archived link).

Photos from the school's official website showed the same auditorium seen in the falsely shared video (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and the school auditorium where the clip was filmed, with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP

Old videos often resurface in misleading social media posts after natural disasters, and AFP has previously debunked posts that misrepresented outdated footage from Philippines quakes.

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