Old Video From Indonesia Falsely Shared as a Recent Clip of Tsunami in Japan

This video dates back to 2021 and is from Indonesia and not Japan.

Fact-Check: Old video of a huge tide in Indonesia falsely linked to Japan's earthquake and tsunami.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing a massive wave sweeping three people away is going viral on social media to claim that this is from Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami.

What happened in Japan?: Ishikawa witnessed an earthquake with 7.6-magnitude on 1 January.

• This was followed by a tsunami on Japan's western coast with multiple aftershocks.

• The death toll in the remote Noto peninsula has reached 92.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

What's the truth?: This video is from Indonesia and dates back to 2021.

• It shows a tidal bore along a coast where a river empties into an ocean or sea.

How did we find out the truth?: On performing a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video, we came across a YouTube video from 17 January 2022.

• The clip carried three different videos from vloggers who were present at the same scene at the same time.

• The viral video matches the third frame and starts at 0:15 timestamp.

• The same results also led us to a Korean website, FM Korea, which carried the same viral video.

• The description stated that this video is from Indonesia but it was first shared with incorrect information about being from Tonga.

The report can be seen here.

(Source: report/Screenshot)

• Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search in Indonesian language.

• This led us to an Indonesian news report published on 9 December 2021 which carried a similar visual of the woman seen in the viral video.

• Another report by Detik News stated that this video was taken during a Bono wave, also known as a tidal bore, in Riau, Indonesia.

• We also came across a Facebook post from 10 December 2021 which specified that the woman seen in the video runs a YouTube channel named 'Rina rina bono Channel cahaya pagi'.

• She had posted a video from a similar location and in the same outfit on 19 December 2021 and often posts such videos about tidal bores.

We have reached out to the user to get more information about the viral video and the story will be update when we receive a response.

Conclusion: Although we could not independently verify the exact date of the video, it is certain that it is old and is unrelated to the recent earthquake in Japan.

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