This video was taken after the 2011 tsunami in Japan, not the cyclone in Mozambique

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 26, 2019 at 11:54
2 min read
By AFP South Africa, Tendai DUBE

Dramatic footage of cars being swept away by a flood has been circulating on Facebook this week, in posts that say it shows the damage in Mozambique after devastating Cyclone Idai. In fact, the video was taken in Japan in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami that claimed the lives of more than 18,000 people.

As reported by AFP, more than 700 people have been confirmed dead in Mozambique and Zimbabwe since Cyclone Idai made landfall on March 15. Aid officials have warned that many more people could die from water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhus without a massive humanitarian effort.

Hundreds of people are still missing in the two countries, where more than two million people have been affected by the disaster.

One post sharing the video of the cars being swept away, archived here by AFP Fact Check, has been shared more than 1,500 times and viewed 56,000 times. “Port Beira, Mozambique - 2 days ago”, reads the caption.

A screenshot taken on March 26, 2019 shows a Facebook post which wrongly states the video was taken in Mozambique

A similar post from 2017 has resurfaced this week, garnering a total of more than 3,400 shares. Its caption also says that it shows a “Flood in Beira Mozambique”. More Facebook posts linking the video to Mozambique, shared hundreds of times each, can be found here and here.

In fact, the video was recorded in Kesennuma, a town on the eastern coast of Japan in Miyagi Prefecture. The voice of a local official can be heard saying the following in Japanese: "This is Kesennuma city. A major tsunami warning was issued on the coastline of Miyagi.”

The same footage can be seen here on YouTube, posted in 2011, in a video that says it was filmed in Kesennuma after the tsunami.

You can see many of the same details in the video, including the green car at the front. You can also hear the same warning from the Japanese official.

To further confirm that the footage was taken in Kesennuma, a building in the tsunami video can still be seen in Google Maps Street View images from the Japanese town here.

A screenshot from the footage shows a distinctive white building

The same building can be seen on Google Street View images from Kesennuma, Japan

Earlier this month Japan marked the eighth anniversary of the fatal earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that devastated the northeastern coast, leaving 18,430 people dead or missing.

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