Latest news with #FormosaTelevision
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Watch mud volcano erupt beneath a crown of flames in Taiwan
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A mud volcano has roared to life in front of a temple in Taiwan, with mesmerizing videos capturing the moments mud shot out of the ground beneath a crown of fire. The Wandan mud volcano, located in the Wandan Township of southern Taiwan, spat bubbling mud out of four separate vents on Thursday (June 26) as ejected material reached a height of 6.6 feet (2 meters), Formosa Television (FTV) News reported. Footage from the roughly 10-hour-long eruption shows flames igniting above the bubbling mud. However, while mud volcanoes can ignite naturally, the Wandan flames were deliberately set by local people to burn off ejected methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, according to Reddit posts by Mark Tingay, an adjunct associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Adelaide in Australia. "Local folks ignite these vents by throwing burning rags into them," Tingay wrote in response to one Reddit user asking about the flames. "They do it mostly to flare off the gases, but partly because it looks awesome!" Related: Underwater robot in Siberia's Lake Baikal reveals hidden mud volcanoes — and an active fault Mud volcanoes usually don't have anything to do with regular volcanoes, which eject molten rock and hot gases. Some mud volcanoes are linked to hot geothermal activity, like those in Yellowstone National Park. However, Wandan's mud volcano is the more common type of this geological feature. "These mud volcanoes in Taiwan are driven by high fluid pressures that can form deep underground, rather than by magmatic influence," Tingay wrote in another Reddit comment. Tingay studies mud volcanoes and regularly shares information about eruptions on social media. In his latest posts, he described the Wandan event alongside a video taken by 張寶惠, the mud volcano temple's caretaker. 張寶惠 also shared videos on Facebook, showing the mud volcano violently erupting from different angles. The latest eruption began at around 5 a.m. local time and continued until around 3.40 p.m. This is the 10th time the Wandan mud volcano has erupted within the last three years, according to Tingay's posts. RELATED STORIES —Rare mud volcano explodes into towering inferno in Caspian Sea —Indonesia's Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano erupts twice in 2 days, unleashing 6-mile-high ash cloud —Hidden layer beneath Italy's Campi Flegrei caldera may explain why it's so restless Wandan's mud volcano isn't in a single fixed location, but can erupt over a 0.6-mile-wide (1 kilometer) area, according to Tingay. In previous years, the volcano has erupted underneath the temple, with mud shooting up the outside wall and flowing inside, covering the floor. Mud volcanoes vary in size and shape, and in some cases, form massive cone-like structures very similar in appearance to regular volcanoes. They can naturally produce flames when erupting rocks strike against each other, creating a spark that ignites ejected flammable gases. Researchers believe this is what produced a towering inferno above a mud volcano in the Caspian Sea in 2021, Live Science previously reported.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Footage of Myanmar earthquake phenomenon misrepresented as petroleum leak
"Myanmar's 8.2 earthquake tore the earth apart! Black oil was pouring underground, and the empty building was almost completely collapsed," reads the caption of a TikTok video uploaded March 30. Text over the clip reads: "Myanmar quake 'rips up the earth' with black oil bubbling up from the ground, fearing explosions or fires". The video, which includes other footage filmed during the earthquake and visuals created using artificial intelligence, is a clip aired by Formosa Television. The Taiwanese broadcaster later retracted the report and apologised for "misusing AI-generated images circulated online" (archived link). Still, similar videos and claims have accumulated hundreds of shares on Chinese video-sharing platforms Douyin and Kuaishou. A massive 7.7-magnitude tremor struck Myanmar's second-largest city of Mandalay on March 28. More than 60,000 people have crowded into temporary displacement sites as major cities lie devastated three weeks after the quake, according to the UN Development Programme (archived link). Scientists told AFP the viral footage actually shows a phenomenon associated with seismic activity -- not a petroleum leak. "This is a phenomenon known as liquefaction, which occurs when an earthquake rapidly increases the water pressure in the soil," said Jessada Denduangboripant, a professor in Chulalongkorn University's Department of Biology, on April 16 (archived link). "It's soil pushed up to the surface, and I don't think it's petroleum as claimed." A reverse image search found a longer version of the TikTok video published March 28 (archived link). A broken bridge appears around nine seconds into the video. A speaker says the bridge connects two villages over the Sittang River near the capital Naypyidaw (archived link). Subsequent reverse image and keyword searches found some of the footage was also published on the YouTube channel Myo Taw, which described it as "groundwater overflowing from the earthquake" (archived link). Shahar Ben-Zeev, a researcher specialising in earthquakes at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told AFP: "I can assure that the photos are of soil liquefaction" (archived link). The phenomenon, often observed by seismologists, occurs when the earth itself liquefies under the power of a jolt (archived link). Quakes sometimes hit the soil with such force that its particles come loose, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Ground saturated with water starts behaving like a liquid. "Many times the fluid flow is concentrated into preferred channels and appears at the surface as 'soil boils' where the water-grain slurry erupts," Ben-Zeev said in an April 16 email. He said petroleum leaking "is impossible to occur without (the) pre-existence of a very shallow oil reservoir." USGS geophysicist Susan Hough noticed the same incident during the Myanmar quake, telling American outlet Science News that it could pose a potential danger for cities in river deltas with seismic activity (archived link). AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about the Myanmar earthquake here.
AFP
18-04-2025
- General
- AFP
Footage of Myanmar earthquake phenomenon misrepresented as petroleum leak
"Myanmar's 8.2 earthquake tore the earth apart! Black oil was pouring underground, and the empty building was almost completely collapsed," reads the caption of a TikTok video uploaded March 30. Text over the clip reads: "Myanmar quake 'rips up the earth' with black oil bubbling up from the ground, fearing explosions or fires". Image Screenshot of the false TikTok video captured April 17, 2025 The video, which includes other footage filmed during the earthquake and visuals created using artificial intelligence, is a clip aired by Formosa Television. The Taiwanese broadcaster later retracted the report and apologised for "misusing AI-generated images circulated online" (archived link). Still, similar videos and claims accumulated hundreds of shares on Chinese video-sharing platforms Douyin and . Image Screenshot of the false videos shared on Douyin and Kuaishou, captured April 17, 2025 A massive 7.7-magnitude tremor struck Myanmar's second-largest city of Mandalay on March 28. More than 60,000 people have crowded into temporary displacement sites as major cities lie devastated three weeks after the quake, according to the UN Development Programme (archived link). told AFP the viral footage actually shows a phenomenon associated with seismic activity -- not a petroleum leak. "This is a phenomenon known as liquefaction, which occurs when an earthquake rapidly increases the water pressure in the soil," said Jessada Denduangboripant, a professor in Chulalongkorn University's Department of (archived link). "It's soil pushed up to the surface, and I don't think it's petroleum as claimed." Soil liquefaction A reverse image search found a longer version of the TikTok video published March 28 (archived link). broken bridge appears around nine seconds into the video. A speaker says the bridge connects two villages over the Sittang River near the capital Naypyidaw (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (L) and the original TikTok clip Subsequent reverse image and keyword searches found some of the footage was also published on the YouTube channel Myo Taw, which described it as "groundwater overflowing from the earthquake" (archived link). Shahar Ben-Zeev, a researcher specialising in earthquakes at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told AFP: "I can assure that the photos are of soil liquefaction" (archived link). The phenomenon, often observed by seismologists, occurs when the earth itself liquefies under the power of a jolt (archived link). Quakes sometimes hit the soil with such force that its particles come loose, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Ground saturated with water starts behaving like a liquid. "Many times the fluid flow is concentrated into preferred channels and appears at the surface as 'soil boils' where the water-grain slurry erupts," Ben-Zeev said in an April 16 email. He said petroleum leaking "is impossible to occur without ( ) pre-existence of a very shallow oil reservoir." USGS geophysicist Susan Hough noticed the same incident during the Myanmar quake, telling American outlet Science News that it could pose a potential danger for cities in river deltas with seismic activity (archived link). has fact-checked other misinformation about the Myanmar earthquake here.
