Misleading and AI-Generated Videos Spread After Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake in Northern Japan
Introduction
A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 struck northern Japan on April 20, 2026. It caused tsunami waves up to 80 centimeters high at a port in Kuji, Iwate prefecture, and shook large buildings in Tokyo. Shortly after, many social media posts shared videos that claimed to show the earthquake''s effects. However, fact-checkers have confirmed that these clips either show older earthquakes or were created by artificial intelligence.
Main Body
The earthquake on April 20, 2026, led to tsunami warnings and was felt hundreds of kilometers from its center. However, two types of false videos began to spread online. The first type included clips shared with Thai-language captions that claimed to show the April 20 event. In reality, these videos came from two separate historical earthquakes. One clip, which showed a shop collapsing, was posted on TikTok on May 7, 2025, by a beauty products seller. The timestamp on the video, March 28, 2025, matches a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in central Myanmar that killed over 3,800 people. The shop''s Facebook page later confirmed that the building was demolished because of earthquake damage. A second clip showed shoppers inside a shoe store. It was posted on Instagram on January 1, 2024, and is linked to the Noto Peninsula earthquake in central Japan, which killed more than 700 people. A longer version of this footage, saved on YouTube, identifies the location as the Mitsui Outlet Park in Oyabe. The store''s layout and signs match this location. AFP had already debunked these same clips when they were falsely linked to earthquakes in Russia and the Philippines in 2025. The second type of misleading video showed high-rise buildings swaying at an intersection. These clips were shared with captions describing a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Japan. However, this video was posted on TikTok on December 15, 2025, several months before the April 20 earthquake. The person who uploaded it has a history of posting AI-generated content. Analysis of the video found several signs that it was artificially created. For example, signs in the video contain illegible text that looks like Chinese or Korean. The crosswalk markings are inconsistent, and there is no camera shake during the supposed earthquake. Furthermore, stationary objects like a convenience store and parked cars do not move at all, while buildings and pylons sway. This contradicts how a real earthquake would affect the scene. AFP has also debunked other false information related to the April 2026 earthquake.
Conclusion
To summarize, the videos that spread widely after the April 20, 2026, earthquake in northern Japan do not show that event. One set of clips comes from the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake and the January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. Another clip is an AI-generated fake that was posted months earlier. The verified effects of the April 20 earthquake included tsunami waves and shaking in Tokyo, but no major damage was reported.