Posts falsely link recycled Japanese quake footage to deadly July 2026 tremor
- Published on August 5, 2026 at 05:33
- 3 min read
- By Sammy HEUNG, Livia LIU, AFP Hong Kong
The deadly 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan's southwestern Kumamoto region in July 2026 caused widespread damage, but footage circulating online of people crouching down in a shopping mall as the building violently shakes was not filmed during the jolt. The clip was taken at the Aeon Mall Takaoka in Toyama -- in northwestern Japan, hundreds of kilometres away from Kumamoto -- when another powerful earthquake hit the country's Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day 2024.
"On-site footage! A strong earthquake has suddenly struck Kumamoto, Japan, causing a shopping mall to shake violently! This is too scary!" says part of a simplified Chinese Weibo post shared by a user with over 28,000 followers on July 28, 2026.
"The shopping mall was shaking crazily! The hanging lamps swung wildly, and people at the scene kept screaming. The scene was at one point very chaotic. In the face of natural disasters, human beings are really too small."
The post includes a video appearing to show the inside of a shopping mall during an earthquake, with shoppers crouching as the structure shakes.
The footage was also shared by several media outlets, such as China's NetEase News, Hong Kong's TVB News and Taiwan's FTV News, in reports about an earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture on Japan's Kyushu island on July 28 (archived link).
Local media reported that at least 38 people were killed in the powerful quake, which caused widespread damage in the southwestern region, flattening homes, damaging bridges, triggering fires and leaving many without electricity and water (archived link).
The death toll included seven people who died in an explosion at the Aeon Mall in Kumamoto following the jolt (archived link). Rescuers pulled 12 others from the wreckage.
Japan is one of the world's most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific "Ring of Fire". Kumamoto itself was hit by two devastating earthquakes in 2016, which killed 273 people and injured more than 2,800.
But the footage circulating on social media was not filmed during the latest tremor.
Noto Peninsula quake
A reverse image search using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage shared on TikTok on January 2, 2024 -- the day after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rippled through the Noto Peninsula on the west coast of Japan's main island of Honshu (archived here and here).
The powerful quake claimed over 700 lives.
The TikTok clip's caption says it shows the January 1, 2024 earthquake, and includes the hashtags "Aeon Mall Takaoka" and "Toyama". Toyama is approximately 720 kilometres (448 miles) from Kumamoto.
The layout of the shopping centre in the falsely shared video also matches the official floor plan of Aeon Mall Takaoka.
The shops visible in the footage -- appearing in sequence as American Holic, Muji, Muk Moca Brown and Gorge Be -- are the same as those on the second floor of the mall's West Building (archived link).
The same shops can also be seen in a Japanese YouTuber's video of the mall (archived link).
Japanese fact-checkers also debunked posts that circulated in January 2025 that misrepresented the same footage as showing an earthquake in Miyazaki Prefecture (archived link).
AFP has fact-checked other misinformation related to the Kumamoto earthquake.
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