yoga-mahendra
Social media feeds have recently been flooded with sensational videos claiming to document fresh volcanic disasters across Indonesia. However, fact-checking investigations have confirmed that these circulating clips are actually archival footage recorded during major eruptions in 2018, resurfaced out of context following real-time geological unrest in the archipelago.
The flurry of misleading online posts emerged in the wake of renewed volcanic activity across the region, which included an explosive eruption from Mount Anak Krakatau located in the Sunda Strait. Rather than relying on authentic, current imagery of these events, multiple social media users republished dramatic historical recordings to exaggerate the scale and immediate danger of the situation.
Among the most prominent misattributed posts was a Facebook video uploaded on September 6, which asserted that Mount Anak Krakatau had undergone a massive eruption on that very day. The post claimed that the volcanic event produced towering ash columns rising as high as 50,000 feet, or approximately 15.2 kilometers, into the atmosphere.
The video attached to this claim displayed a dramatic nighttime scene, capturing bright red lava and thick plumes of ash forcefully spewing into the dark sky. While visually striking, the clip did not depict anything that transpired during the recent September disturbances.
In reality, detailed verification revealed that the nighttime footage originated years earlier. The footage was originally filmed between October 24 and October 26, 2018, and had been circulated under the title "Krakatau at night," documenting Anak Krakatau's significant eruptive phase during that period.
Further scrutiny showed that the video used in the deceptive Facebook post had been deliberately edited—zoomed in and sped up compared to the original version. The video agency Newsflare had previously distributed the footage on its YouTube channel on November 4, 2019, noting that the eruption had been documented on October 25, 2018. Inquiries sent to Rietze regarding the footage received no reply before publication.
Anak Krakatau, whose name translates to "Child of Krakatau," has had a long history of sporadic activity since it first arose nearly a century ago within the caldera created by the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Mount Krakatau. The volcano, positioned in the strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra, experienced a partial collapse in December 2018, just months after the recorded video was taken. That collapse generated a devastating tsunami that claimed the lives of over 400 individuals and displaced thousands of local residents.
A separate viral post shared on September 10 presented an entirely different piece of out-of-context media. Accompanied by a Hindi-language caption, the post claimed that six distinct volcanoes had erupted at the exact same time across Indonesia, causing danger and threat levels to surge across multiple territories.
Accompanying this alarming narrative was a video depicting young schoolchildren running in fear along a road while an immense, billowing wall of dark volcanic ash dominated the horizon in the background. The visual presentation was framed as breaking news of the supposed simultaneous multi-volcano catastrophe.
However, a reverse image search using keyframes from the footage traced its actual origin to a report broadcast by Indonesian television network Kompas TV, which was published on YouTube on February 20, 2018.
Indonesian captions on the original broadcast confirmed that the video documented students fleeing from the Naman Teran State Elementary School, situated in North Sumatra, following an eruption of Mount Sinabung that had occurred the previous day. During that February 2018 event, Sinabung unleashed an enormous column of ash and thick smoke that reached roughly 5,000 meters into the sky.
Independent verification through digital mapping tools corroborated these findings. Key geographical markers visible in the viral clip matched Google Street View imagery captured in the vicinity of the Naman Teran elementary school in North Sumatra, confirming the precise site of the historical 2018 recording.
The online narrative suggesting a coordinated or catastrophic chain reaction across Indonesian volcanoes also runs counter to established geological assessments. Rita Susilawati, head of Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, provided critical scientific perspective regarding how multiple volcanic systems function in the region.
Susilawati explained that Indonesia's geographical position along the Pacific Ring of Fire, coupled with its landscape containing 127 active volcanoes, makes it entirely plausible for several separate volcanoes to erupt on the exact same day without being systematically linked or interdependent.
Natural occurrences of simultaneous activity are a known reality of the region's complex tectonic structure, rather than evidence of a unified geological disaster or immediate nationwide crisis. Fact-checkers at AFP have previously debunked similar misleading claims regarding volcanic eruptions across the Indonesian archipelago, where old footage routinely resurfaces to misinform the public during periods of heightened volcanic reporting.
Comments (0)