A video circulating online is showing old clips of eruptions in Indonesia’s Krakatoa Volcano, falsely claiming it to be that of Kanlaon Volcano’s unrest this week.
Uploaded on FB on June 3, the 14-second video showed snippets of volcanic explosions with voices of supposed residents cursing in local Filipino languages in the background. The video bore the text:
“MT. CANLAON PUMUTOK (MT. CANLAON ERUPTED).”
This video is false. The clips are from archival footage of Krakatoa Volcano’s eruption in 2018, not of Kanlaon on Negros Island in the central Philippines, which spewed ash and rocks five kilometers into the sky on Monday evening.
User @MRietze uploaded the longer video on Newsflare, a platform for user generated content. The video’s title read: “Photographer captures incredible moment of Krakatoa’s 2018 violent eruption.”
MRietze and Newsflare also uploaded the same video on YouTube. The audio of people talking in Filipino local languages was just overlaid onto the video.
Hundreds of seismic eruptions were recorded in the Krakatoa Volcano in October 2018 according to reports.
On the evening of June 3, an explosive eruption occurred at the summit vent of the Kanlaon Volcano on Negros island, prompting the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) to place it under Alert Level 2.
According to PHIVOLCS’ bulletin, the phreatic eruption – spewing steam and ash, lasted for six minutes and was followed by a relatively strong volcano-tectonic earthquake.
VERA Files Fact Check has debunked other videos of volcanic eruptions passed off with wrong context. (Read Circulating video of Taal Volcano eruption NOT taken in 2023)
The post by the FB page News update (created on June 19, 2019) garnered 763,000 views before it was taken down. Other FB pages such as Danny Alesnatv (Sept. 6, 2022) and Bisaya good vibes (created on Sept. 27, 2022 as garbagevlogs) also posted the video, while others circulated screenshots.
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