WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A video shows a tsunami hitting Japan.
OUR VERDICT
False. The video is a compilation of AI-generated clips.
AAP FACTCHECK - A video compilation supposedly showing destructive tsunamis following an 8.8-magnitude earthquake near Russia was created using artificial intelligence (AI).
Hashtags in accompanying captions suggest that the video shows scenes from Japan, but every clip featured is AI-generated and can be traced back to a user known for posting fake weather reels.
The video appeared after the powerful earthquake, on July 30, 2025, sparked tsunami evacuation orders as far away as Hawaii and across the Pacific.
Russia, Japan and the US have since downgraded warnings, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a notice on July 31, 2025, saying "the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now largely passed".
A PNG-based user posted the video on Facebook, where it has racked up more than 11 million views, 36,000 likes and 7200 shares.
Overlaid text reads "July 23, 2025", which predates the Russian earthquake, but tags in the caption include #tsunamiinjapan and #tsunamialert.
The user also responds to questions asking for the video's location with "Japan".
The first clip shows cars disappearing into thin air and displays the watermark "@spoookkyydoo" - a TikTok account that frequently posts AI-generated weather videos.
The second clip features the same watermark, and in the third one of the houses inexplicably changes colour from brown to white (timestamp 20 seconds), something AAP FactCheck has previously noted in a debunk of claims that the clip showed floods in Texas.
While several of the clips purportedly show major flooding in coastal towns, there are no credible reports of coastal flooding on that scale in Japan after the recent quake.
One clip shows pedestrians walking and cars driving directly towards the clearly oncoming wave (0:28).
Later, houses inexplicably change colour when the water hits them.
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