Old Video From Japan Shared as Recent Flooding at a China Airport

Fact-Check | The 2011 video showed floodwaters entering the Sendai Airport in Japan and not the current situation in China.

(Photo: The Quint)

An old video from Japan showing water carrying away planes, helicopters and other vehicles in an airport has been shared with a false claim that it showed the devastating flood situation in China after the record rainfall in some parts of the country.

This video dates back to March 2011 and is from the Sendai Airport in Japan. The flooding was caused because of a tsunami that hit the country following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March 2011.

CLAIM

Some social media users just captioned the video as a scene from China and said, "China flood going through the airport."

Some other users commented on the situation and said, "यह कोई हॉलीवुड की मूवी का सीन नहीं है बल्कि यह चाइना के एयरपोर्ट का मंजर है| जैसी करनी वैसी भरनी |"

(Translation: This is not a scene from a Hollywood movie, but the situation at a Chinese airport. As you sow so shall you reap.)

An archive of the post can be found here. 

Archived links of more such posts on Facebook and Twitter can be found here, here, here, and here.

The same video was sent to us as a query on our WhatsApp tipline.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We noticed "JiJicom" written on the top left corner of the video. We conducted a keyword search for the same and found that JIJI.COM is a Japanese media and news website.

Using the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension, we extracted keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them using the keyword "jijicom".

We found the same video posted on JIJI.COM's YouTube channel on 28 April 2011.

The caption of the video said mentioned that the video was released by the Japan Coast Guard when the tsunami of the Great East Japan Earthquake hits Sendai Air Base. The video showed planes, helicopters and cars being swept away.

Taking a cue from the caption, we conducted a keyword search of the incident and found a news report about the incident on Wall Street Journal.

The report was published on 29 April 2011 and it carried the same video.

Videos of the incident, shot from a different angle, were also uploaded on Associated Press and Euronews.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck Japan's coast on 11 March 2011 which triggered a tsunami that caused massive damage to the country including Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Notably, China has been seeing a record-breaking rainfall that has triggered raging floods in many parts of the country.

Over a lakh Chinese citizens had to be evacuated from their homes and at least 70 people have lost their lives so far. Photos and video footage circulating on social media platforms showed the extent of the devastation.

However, this video is not from China and doesn't show the current situation there.

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