Viral TikTok Video Falsely Claims to Show Jajarkot Quake

A video widely shared on TikTok falsely claims to depict the earthquake that struck Jajarkot district in Karnali Province in early November. Nepal Check conducted an investigation and confirmed that the video is actually from eight years ago.

The recent earthquake in Jajarkot, on November 3, 2023, resulted in the tragic loss of at least 153 lives. Additionally, over 10,000 houses in Jajarkot and Rukum West sustained damage, following a 6.4 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter located in Ramidanda in Jajarkot.

Following the November 3 earthquake, numerous Facebook users shared video clips claiming to show the aftermath of the disaster.

On November 4, a TikTok user, @master.piece69, posted a video with the caption: “#Sadnews Police said that 100 people have lost their lives in Jajarkot and Rukum after the earthquake hit last night with Jajarkot as the epicenter. About 240 people have been injured.” The 21-second clip features a popular Nepali song as background music and shows people in distress as a three-story concrete house collapses during the quake.

This TikTok post garnered over 50,000 responses (likes and comments), accumulating more than 1 million views.

To fact-check the claims, Nepal Check conducted a verification process. We used keywords based on the video’s content and initially searched for “live building collapse Nepal earthquake 2015” on Google. This query did not yield any results showing the video in question. We subsequently performed a similar search on YouTube and found a video uploaded by YouTube user Sadish Manandhar. This video was labeled as being shot in Ramkot, on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

A screengrab of a YouTube video of the 2015 earthquake.

On April 25, 2015, an earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale struck central Nepal, killing almost 9,000 people and destroying half a million homes, buildings, and other infrastructures. Two weeks later, on May 12, 2015, a 7.3-magnitude  earthquake struck eastern Nepal.

The viral video was published 8 years ago and shows the earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015, not the earthquake that hit Jajarkot in early November.

ClaimClaimed byNepal Check Verdict
Video shows impacts of earthquake in JajarkotTikTok usersFalse
Nepal Check verdict after fact-checking a video claiming to show impacts of earthquake in Jajarkot, Nepal.

Deepak Adhikari's avatar

This article is written by

Deepak Adhikari

Deepak Adhikari is the editor of Nepal Check. Over the last two decades, he has worked as a correspondent for international media and national publications in Nepal. His work has appeared in major international publications such as New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Al Jazeera, Nikkei Asia.