Old Japan tsunami video falsely linked to 2026 Venezuela earthquake
- Published on June 29, 2026 at 11:04
- 2 min read
- By Cristina ALONSO PASCUAL, Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Spain, AFP Thailand
After powerful twin quakes rattled Venezuela in June 2026, social media posts recirculated a 15-year-old video falsely claiming it showed a tsunami hitting the Venezuelan coast. The footage in fact shows a tsunami off the Kuji port in Japan in 2011, while there were no official reports of a tsunami striking Venezuela.
"Tsunami occurred in La Guaira following a severe earthquake in Venezuela," reads a Thai-language Facebook post on June 25, 2026.
The post shares a video of over one minute showing vessels in the sea before a massive wave crashes over the shore.
Similar claims spread elsewhere on Facebook and TikTok and were also shared in multiple languages such as English and Spanish, after Venezuela was struck with two back-to-back earthquakes on June 24 (archived link).
The coastal area of La Guaira, near the capital Caracas, was the worst hit, with one building after another crumpled by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes.
Emergency teams with rescue dogs continued their search for survivors on Sunday -- where tens of thousands were still reported missing -- while the death toll has surpassed 1,450 (archived link).
But the video does not show a tsunami in Venezuela and there were no official reports that a tsunami struck La Guaira.
2011 Japan tsunami
A reverse image search using the video's keyframes led AFP to the same clip posted on YouTube on August 31, 2011, by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (archived link).
Its description says the video was filmed at Kuji Port in Iwate Prefecture and was provided by Japanese authorities.
The same video was also posted by the 2011 Japan Tsunami Archives on YouTube (archived link).
A 9.0-magnitude undersea quake triggered a tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011 that killed or left missing around 18,500 people and wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant (archived link).
Iwate was one of the areas hit the hardest by the disaster (archived link).
AFP geolocated the video to a port in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, and found matching elements including the distinctive mountain ridges in the background and the port structure (archived link).
Tsunami warnings were briefly issued for several Caribbean territories following the earthquakes, but all alerts were subsequently cancelled, according to the US National Tsunami Warning Center (archived link).
Colombia's disaster management agency UNGRD ruled out any tsunami risk, and the Dominican Republic withdrew its warning shortly after issuing it (archived here and here).
AFP previously debunked misinformation linked to the Venezuela earthquake and other natural disasters.
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