FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show Recent Flooding At A Chinese Airport?

A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows recent flooding at an airport in China.

Verdict: False

The video actually shows the floodwaters of a 2011 tsunami in Japan.

Fact Check:

Record rainfall in the central Chinese province of Henan caused major flooding last week, with officials saying over 1 million people have been displaced, according to NPR. The flooding has killed at least 71 people, AFP reported.

The footage in the July 24 Facebook post captures water carrying away cars, small aircraft and debris. Japanese text is displayed along with the watermark of a website run by Japan’s Jiji Press. The Facebook post’s caption alleges the scene depicts a “China Airport flooded.”

In reality, the flooding in the video didn’t take place in China or any time this year. Jiji Press posted the same footage on YouTube in April 2011. The outlet said in the description that it originally came from the Japanese Coast Guard and showed the March 11 tsunami that year causing damage at an airfield near the Japanese city of Sendai.

The Associated Press and EuroNews respectively posted footage of the same tsunami hitting Sendai Airport. The airport fully reopened in late September 2011, when planned international flights resumed, according to The Japan Times. (RELATED: Did Kevin McCarthy Say, ‘There Are No Mass Shootings In Japan Because There Are No Video Games There’?)

The March 2011 tsunami, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown, resulted from a magnitude nine earthquake off Japan’s coast, the Associated Press reported. The disaster killed over 15,000 people and left hundreds of thousands without homes, according to National Geographic.

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