Fact check: Tsunami unleashes fake films and misinformation – DW – 07/30/2025

DW

6 days ago

An earthquake in the Pacific triggered tsunami waves across the US, Japan, and Russia — and a flood of misinformation online. DW separates fact from fiction.
A powerful earthquake off Russia's east coast has prompted evacuations across the Pacific, from Japan to Peru, and caused tsunami waves in Russia, Japan, and Hawaii. Among the footage circulating online, misinformation is also spreading fast.
DW Fact check has seen false information ranging from shared out of context to AI-generated fakes and entirely fabricated claims about the situation on the ground.
The American talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey, who lives part time in Maui, Hawaii, has been the target of harsh criticism. She owns a property there and the private road running up to it has sparked debate:
Claim: "In Maui, Hawaii people are moving to higher ground. Oprah Winfrey has refused to let people use her private road," a user claims on X.
DW Fact check: Misleading
At the time the post was published on X, the road in question was already open to traffic, as the Maui Police Department clarified in a statement: "Oprah's road is open to get Upcountry."
A spokesperson for Oprah Winfrey reacted to the claims in a statement shared with Newsweek: "As soon as we heard the tsunami warnings, we contacted local law enforcement and FEMA to ensure the road was opened. Any reports otherwise are false."
Nevertheless, the claim that Oprah Winfrey would block her street to public traffic even in the face of the approaching tsunami persisted. On X in particular, posts to this effect reached millions of people, and the narrative also spread on Threads and TikTok. People reacted with anger to these posts.
Some users posted videos showing that the road is open to traffic. This, as well as confirmation by the Maui police, undermine claims that Oprah Winfrey is blocking public use of her road to higher areas of the island of Maui, showing such posts to be misleading.
As with previous breaking news events, much of the content being shared is older footage which is falsely labeled to suggest it shows the aftermath of the recent magnitude-8.8 quake.
One of the most viral videos shows a couple in a rooftop swimming pool fleeing as heavy tremors begin.
Claim: "What it's like at the rooftop swimming pool of a high-rise building during an M7.7 earthquake," says the post on X, which has 2.6 million views at the time of writing.
DW Fact check: False
While the footage is real and does show an earthquake's impact, it is not from the recent quake in eastern Russia. The video was filmed at a hotel in Bangkok on March 28, 2025, during a magnitude-7.7 earthquake centered in central Myanmar. Tremors were felt in Thailand and southwestern China.
The clip can be verified via reverse image search and appears in media reportsfrom that time.
Back then, a lot of fake content was shared, allegedly showing the aftermath and impact of the earthquake. DW Fact check found at the time that some of this information was false.
Another post on Xclaims to show the "insane tsunami footage out of Russia." However, a reverse image search traces it back to a four-year-old video showing the impact of tsunami waves in Greenland.
The original clip can be found in media reportsof the time. Back then, a massive landslide triggered a tsunami wave that caught local fishermen by surprise.
A third video, also circulating on X, allegedly shows tsunami waves hitting land. But this clip was first posted in 2017and shows waves striking Durban North Beach in South Africa. It has been mislabeled in the past, including in 2023when it was posted along with the false claim it showed a tsunami following the Turkey-Syria earthquake.
A viral postwith 6.4 million views on X shows screenshots from a TBS News DIG report about stranded whales on a Japanese beach. The post speculates that they may have been stranded by the tsunami.
Claim: "In Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, a whale is flipping over for unknown reasons, possibly due to the impact of a tsunami," says the post.
DW Fact check: UnknownA reverse image search confirms the footage is from a TBS News report. Agency photos from The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP, via picture alliance verify that whales were indeed stranded. However, according to Chiba prefectural police, the whales had been beached the day before the tsunami and the events are believed to be unrelated.
A report by The Asahi Shimbunquotes expert Tajima Yuko from the National Museum of Nature and Science, who notes that if unusual underground sounds occurred before the quake, their effects on whales remain unknown.
The article also quotes Mika Kuroda from the NPO Stranding Network Hokkaido who says there is no factual basis for suggestions that stranded whales are precursors for earthquakes, not least because dolphins or whales are stranded every day in Japan.
Artificial intelligence also contribute to the wave of disinformation. Several viral posts about a tsunami alert in California following an earthquake in Russia circulate misleading visuals.
One of such viral images can be seen in a post on X stating: "Balboa is gone." It refers to Balboa Island, a waterfront neighborhood in Newport Beach, California, connected to the mainland by a bridge, ferry, and multiple public docks.
The image shows rows of submerged buildings that are almost entirely underwater, with only their roofs and top floors visible. In the background, a bridge can be seen above the waterline.
DW Fact check: Fake
This is an AI-generated image. While a tsunami watch was issued for parts of California, the projected impact was expected several hours after this image was posted. At the time of posting, there were no official evacuation orders in San Francisco.
Moreover, the image contains visual inconsistencies. Despite the water appearing to engulf buildings, the foot of the bridge in the background is entirely visible, suggesting water levels are not consistent across the image. The original post garnered over 95.2K views.
DW Fact check also tested this image on AI-detecting tools like AIorNot and Hive Moderation, both of which identified it as 99% AI-generated.
Another misleading videocirculating online claims to show real-time impact of the tsunami: "BREAKING — Tsunami footage from the Russian Earthquake is starting to roll in," says a post on X.
One of the videos shows people lying on a beach as a large wave approaches and crashes over the sand. In the subsequent clip, a similar wave is shown engulfing the shore.
DW Fact check: Fake
This video is also AI-generated. None of the people in the footage visibly react to the incoming wave, even as it approaches and washes over them. The wave formation itself is also inconsistent with natural behavior, emerging out of nowhere without any visible buildup.