This video was filmed on a Hong Kong street during another typhoon
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 17, 2019 at 11:30
- 2 min read
- By AFP Hong Kong
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The video was published here on Twitter on October 12, 2019.
The four-second clip shows strong winds and heavy rain lashing a street, blowing trees and debris.
It has been viewed more than 109,000 times and retweeted more than 1,500 times.
The Twitter post’s caption states: “*Typhoon Hagibis* hitting Japan (shocked emoji) With winds speeding 180KM (shocked emoji)”.
The caption ends with two hashtags -- “#Pray4Japan” and “#PrayForJapan”.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading tweet:
The video was published the same day that Typhoon Hagibis hit Japan, killing at least 70 people, as reported here by AFP.
The same video was also published here, here, here and here on Twitter; here and here on Facebook; here on Telegram; here on an online forum with a similar claim. It was also at the beginning of videos in posts here, here and here, which also purport to show the typhoon in Japan.
The claim is false; the video shows a typhoon hitting Hong Kong.
A reverse image search on Google for a screenshot of the video found this September 17, 2018 article published by Hong Kong-based social media site 9GAG.
The article’s headline states: “Super Typhoon Mangkhut Smashed Hong Kong And The Scenes Were Apocalyptic”.
The same four-second video is embedded in the article.
Below is a comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the video published by 9GAG (R):
A subsequent keyword search found this video published by Chinese video site Bilibili on September 16, 2018.
The video’s simplified Chinese title translates to English as: “Typhoon Mangkhut, real scene in Tsim Sha Tsui ”.
Tsim Sha Tsui is a shopping area at Kowloon, Hong Kong.
AFP found the location where the video was filmed on Google Street View here.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the same location on Google Street View with key identifying features circled in red (R):
Typhoon Mangkhut hit mainland China on September 16, 2018, after leaving a trail of destruction in Hong Kong and Macau, as reported here by AFP.
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