Fact-Check: Old Video From Taiwan Shared as Recent Earthquake in Indonesia

The video showed hikers getting knocked over by a 6.8 earthquake in Taiwan.

Fact-Check: This video of people bracing an earthquake is from Taiwan and not Indonesia.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing people crouching for cover during an earthquake has gone viral on the internet.

The claim: Those sharing the video have claimed that it shows the impact of the recent earthquake that took place in Indonesia on Tuesday, 10 January.

(An archive of the post can be found here.)

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The clip was shared in a news bulletin of Times Now Navbharat and NewsNationTV journalist Rahul Sisodia.

The truth: The video is from Taiwan and showed an earthquake that hit the country on 18 September 2022.

How did we find that out:

• We used the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension to extract keyframes from the viral video and conducted a keyword search on the same.

• While going through the search results, we found the same video posted on TikTok in September 2022.

Screenshot from TikTok.

(Source: TikTok/Screenshot)

• A floating text on the video said that the video was from Taiwan and the date was mentioned as 17 September 2022.

• Taking a cue from that, we conducted a keyword search for an earthquake in Taiwan in September 2022 along with the video and found a report in Taiwan News that carried screenshots from the viral video.

A link to the story can be found here.

(Source: TaiwanNews/Screenshot)

• The report said that the people in the video were hikers attending a class in ethnobotany on Zhuoxi Mountain.

• The video was attributed to the Facebook page of the institute, Panita Mountaineering Association of Hualien County (卓溪鄉登山協會), and we found it video posted there on 18 September 2022.

What happened in Indonesia:

• Indonesia was hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday that led people to flee their homes near Tanimbar islands.

• A Tsunami warning was issued but was lifted after three hours, as per Reuters.

Conclusion: A video from Taiwan was shared as an earthquake that took place in Indonesia.

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