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The magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Russia caused tsunami waves, but there are no reports of serious casualties, contrary to the misleading video’s claim
Claim: The powerful earthquake in Russia triggered a large tsunami that killed 10,000 people, as shown in a video.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The Facebook reel has already received 39,000 views, 2,100 comments, and 1,900 shares. It was posted on August 2, three days after a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Russia on July 30, triggering tsunami warnings in the Pacific region.
The video shows a bird’s eye view of an approaching tsunami that eventually engulfed the buildings and vehicles in the area. The text on the footage reads, “20M ang napinsala sa tsunami sa Russia (20 million damaged by tsunami in Russia).” Another text box added at the bottom reads, “10k ‘yong namatay sa biglaan[g] yanig (10,000 people died in the sudden earthquake).”
The facts: The video is AI-generated. AI video detector Hive Moderation flagged the footage as 99.7% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content. A screenshot of the video was also detected by AI image detector Decopy AI as 76.52% AI-generated.
The powerful quake did trigger tsunami waves, but these were not as devastating as initially feared. In Severo-Kurilsk in the northern Kuril Islands, south of Kamchatka, tsunami waves exceeded three to five metres or approximately 16 feet. Houses and some parts of a port were reportedly destroyed or swept out to sea.
There are also no reports that 10,000 people had died, contrary to the claim. Authorities in Russia said that there had been no serious casualties from the earthquake and tsunami, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov crediting solid building construction and the seamless functioning of warning systems.
Russia earthquake, tsunami: Tsunami warnings were sent as far as French Polynesia and Chile after the quake, one of the strongest ever recorded, struck the Far Eastern Kamchatka coast of Russia on July 30.
The shallow earthquake in the isolated Russian region destroyed structures and injured a number of people. People living in much of Japan’s eastern seaboard, which was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in 2011, as well as parts of Hawaii, were urged to evacuate.
Most of the tsunami warnings issued by Russia, Japan, and Hawaii were lowered by the evening of July 30.
While the earthquake did cause some damage in Russia, the quake did not trigger a catastrophic tsunami. David Tappin, a principal researcher at the British Geological Survey, told NBC News that the effectiveness of the warning systems and the epicenter’s remote location may be the cause of the comparatively minor damage that has been documented so far.
Previous fact checks: Rappler has previously debunked similar claims about earthquakes and tsunamis:
– Angelee Kaye Abelinde/Rappler.com
Angelee Kaye Abelinde is a student journalist based in Naga City, and an alumna of Rappler’s Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship 2024.
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