Quake-damaged temple misidentified as sacred site in Myanmar's Yangon city
It includes a video that shows the spire of a golden pagoda collapsing from tremors.
Myanmar's ruling junta has said more than 2,000 people have been killed following the shallow 7.7 magnitude quake that devastated cities across the country. Central Mandalay city, the second biggest with 1.7 million inhabitants suffered some of the worst destruction (archived link).
The tremor flattened a building as far away as Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand, killing at least 20 people.
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Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken March 31, 2025
Similar posts from other Thai users also claimed the video shows the revered Shwedagon pagoda that dominates Yangon's skyline but an AFP journalist saw the site on April 1 and confirmed it has not been damaged.
A reverse image search on Google using the video's keyframes found an identical TikTok video published on the day of the quake (archived link).
The Burmese caption reads in English as: "Zay Ti Gyi in Pindaya collapsed due to the earthquake at 1:51pm. I am deeply saddened by the crying of the people. Please kindly donate."
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Screenshot comparison between the false Facebook post (L) and the TikTok post
AFP was able to confirm the video shows the Zay Ti Gyi temple in Pindaya in Shan state by comparing it with a picture of the site geotagged on Google Maps and showing the same spire.
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Screenshot comparison between the TikTok video (L) and the Google Maps image
An AFP picture of the Shwedagon pagoda -- located 400 kilometres from the Zay Ti Gyi temple -- shows a different and much larger structure.
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