Fact Check: 2015 Video of Nepal Earthquake Viral as Recent Disaster in Papua New Guinea

Recently, a massive earthquake of 7.6 Richter scale struck the eastern part of the island nation of Papua New Guinea. The calamity led to a tsunami warning in the country, killed at least five people, damaged buildings, and triggered landslides. 

Against this backdrop, a viral video showing waves in a swimming pool with people all around it is widely shared on social media. People claim that the video is from Papua New Guinea when the earthquake struck. 

A Facebook user posted the viral video with a caption: Strong earthquake of 7.6 magnitude strikes Papua New Guinea. Tsunami alerted. Another 6.1 magnitude strikes Indonesia. Pray for the safety.

You can check the video here.

FACT CHECK

NewsMobile fact-checked the viral video, and found it to be misleading.

Running a Reverse Image Search of the video keyframes, we found a news article, titled: Nepal earthquake video: Watch ‘mini tsunami’ form in Kathmandu hotel swimming pool during April’s massive tremors, published on the website of The Independent — a British online newspaper, dated May 12, 2015. 

The image in the news article matches one of the keyframes of the viral video. The article informs us that the viral video is from the Nepal earthquake that hit the capital city Kathmandu in 2015. The ‘mini-tsunami’ in the swimming pool was a result of a 7.8 Richter scale earthquake. 

Searching further with relevant keywords, we came across a video titled: What Happened to Swimming Pool in Nepal Earthquake, published 7 years ago (2015) on Dailymotion- a video sharing platform. The keyframes in the video here match exactly with the viral video. 

Many YouTube videos have also carried the same incident. The video, titled: Earthquake April 2015 Nepal, published on April 25, 2015, on the YouTube channel Adriaan Los matches the viral video. The description of the video states that the incident happened in the Summit Hotel, Kathmandu, confirming that it is, indeed, from Nepal from the year 2015 and not a recent one from Papua New Guinea. 

Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral video showing a mini-tsunami being formed in a swimming pool during the recent earthquake in Papua New Guinea is misleading. 

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