A devastating earthquake in China’s remote Tibet region on January 7 killed at least 126 people, with the tremor also rattling parts of neighbouring Nepal and India. But dramatic footage of a quake damaging a busy roundabout that spread globally online and appeared in a Thai television report does not show the recent disaster. It shows the earthquake that rocked Nepal’s capital Kathmandu in April 2015.
“The number of earthquake victims in Tibet has increased to 32, with 38 injured,” read the Thai-language caption of the video, shared on Facebook on January 7, 2025.
“The geological survey says that the epicentre was 163 km from the city of Shigatse, with a population of approximately 80,000. Due to the possibility of repeated tremors, evacuation of the population is continuing.”
The one-minute-long video showed a structure in the middle of a busy roundabout collapsing during an earthquake.
Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on Janaury 8, 2025
The post surfaced after a morning quake on January 7 killed at least 126 people and injured 188 others when it struck rural, high-altitude Tingri county, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Mount Everest near China’s border with Nepal (archived link).
The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) measured the quake’s magnitude as 6.8, while the US Geological Survey reported it as 7.1.
Tremors were also felt in neighbouring Nepal and India, though no casualties were reported.
Thai news channel One News also published the video here and here as part of its coverage of the deadly earthquake in Tibet. Similar posts falsely claiming the video showed the recent quake were shared in languages such as English, Hindi, Tamil and Spanish.
Old Nepal earthquake
Using a reverse image search of the video’s keyframes, AFP found the same footage published by UK’s The Guardian newspaper on April 30, 2015 (archived link).
The video was titled, “Nepal earthquake causes structure to collapse onto busy roundabout — video”. Its caption added the video was filmed in the capital Kathmandu’s Tripureshwor district.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the footage shared by the Guardian (right):
Screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the footage shared by the Guardian (right)
A timestamp reading “2015-04-25” can also be seen at the video’s top right corner:
Screenshot of the footage, with the timestamp highlighted by AFP
Nearly 9,000 people died and more than 22,000 were injured in 2015 when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Nepal, destroying more than half a million homes.
It damaged or destroyed nearly 8,000 schools, leaving almost one million children without classrooms.
Hundreds of monuments and royal palaces — including the Kathmandu Valley’s UNESCO World Heritage sites — that had drawn visitors from around the world were destroyed in a major blow to tourism.
AFP was able to confirm the location of the video by comparing a keyframe with a photo of the roundabout in Kathmandu geotagged on Google Maps (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the photo geotagged on Google Maps (right):
Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the photo geotagged on Google Maps (right)
Euro News also shared the same footage on its YouTube channel on April 30, 2015 (archived link).
Following the earthquake in Tibet, social media was awash with misrepresented images debunked by AFP.
