After a powerful earthquake struck China’s remote Tibet region and killed at least 126 people, an old video of a cyclist panicking as tremors shook the buildings around him spread globally in social media posts that falsely linked it to the disaster. In fact, the footage was shot in Japan and circulated in news reports about a quake that hit the country on New Year’s Day 2024.
“6.8-magnitude earthquake in Shigatse, Tibet,” read the simplified Chinese caption of a video posted on Douyin on January 7.
The video, shared more than 3,200 times, appears to be dashcam footage of a cyclist panicking as he is caught in the midst of a powerful tremor that collapses one building and violently shakes another.
It surfaced online hours after a devastating earthquake jolted China’s remote Tibet region on January 7, leaving at least 126 people dead (archived link).
Another 188 were injured and thousands of buildings damaged in the quake that struck rural, high-altitude Tingri county, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Mount Everest near China’s border with Nepal. Tremors were also felt in neighbouring Nepal and India, though no casualties were reported.
The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) measured the quake’s magnitude as 6.8, while the US Geological Survey reported it as 7.1.
Screenshot of the falsely shared post, captured on January 8, 2024
The video surfaced in posts in multiple languages, including Nepali, English, Urdu, Bangla, Malay, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.
However, the clip is old and was shot during the deadly 2024 New Year’s Day quake that hit Japan’s remote Noto Peninsula, claiming nearly 470 lives and laying waste to houses and infrastructure (archived link).
Japan New Year’s Day quake
A reverse image search on Google led to a video compilation of dashcam footage from the Noto earthquake published by Japanese newspaper The Mainichi on February 8 (archived link).
The video of the cyclist can be seen at the video’s two-minute, 12-second mark.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip in the false posts (left) and the video published by The Mainichi (right):
Screenshot comparison of the clip in the false posts (left) and the video published by The Mainichi (right)
According to The Mainichi, the footage was recorded on January 1 by the dashcam of a courtesy car belonging to the social welfare organization Choujukai, which is based in Ishikawa prefecture, where the earthquake hit.
The footage was also posted on YouTube by Japanese broadcasters All-Nippon News and Japan News Network (archived here and here).
The original footage includes the coordinates for the location the video was shot — on a section of National Route 249 in Ishikawa Prefecture in the Noto Peninsula (archived link).
Google Street View imagery from September 2023 shows the same shop with the blue signboard and house with a traditional roof as those seen in the video (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the footage released by The Mainichi (left) and the Street View imagery (right), with similarities highlighted by AFP:
Screenshot comparison of the footage released by The Mainichi (left) and the Street View imagery (right), with similarities highlighted by AFP
