The Claim
The claim is false. A 35-second video shared widely on X beginning June 7, 2026, showing panicked people fleeing as a building's ceiling collapsed, was captioned "7.8 earthquake hits the Philippines today!!" The post accumulated nearly 500,000 views within sixteen hours. PolitiFact investigated the footage on June 8, 2026, and confirmed it does not show the June 2026 disaster — it was filmed during a different earthquake in 2023, more than two years earlier.
What the Evidence Shows
A real and deadly earthquake did strike the Philippines on June 8, 2026. A magnitude 7.8 quake hit off the country's southern coast, killing at least 35 people, injuring hundreds more, and destroying buildings across the region. The disaster generated extensive legitimate media coverage, and social media users quickly began sharing footage — both real and fabricated.
The viral ceiling-collapse video was not among the authentic footage. A reverse image search conducted by PolitiFact traced the clip to multiple posts dated November 17, 2023, when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck offshore of Davao Occidental in the southern Philippines. That 2023 quake killed eleven people. The footage in the viral post shows people inside what appears to be a shopping mall in General Santos City — consistent with news photographs published by local outlet SunStar Davao at the time of the 2023 event. The original source credited the footage to a videographer named "Dave Miles."
Key details confirming the misdating:
- The video had been published on X and Facebook on November 17, 2023, more than two and a half years before the June 2026 earthquake.
- The location — a shopping mall interior in General Santos City — matches verified photographs from the 2023 event, not from any reported June 2026 scene.
- No news organization or emergency management authority in the Philippines published the footage as originating from June 2026.
- PolitiFact could not identify the original 2023 post, but multiple independent accounts crediting "Dave Miles" and placing the location in General Santos City all appeared in November 2023.
Why This Matters
Disaster misinformation spreads fastest in the hours immediately following an event, when verified footage is still limited and audiences are searching for anything that confirms the scale of what has happened. Old videos, recycled from previous disasters, are regularly reshared with new captions during breaking news crises. The June 2026 Philippines earthquake was severe enough — 7.8 magnitude, dozens killed — that viewers had no reason to question whether compelling footage from a collapsing building was authentic. That plausibility is precisely what makes recycled disaster video so dangerous: it does not need to be convincing on its own terms because the real event provides all the context a viewer needs to accept it.
PublicProof also investigated this viral video. Their full analysis is available at PublicProof.
Verdict
The viral video shared as footage of the June 2026 Philippines earthquake is ❌ False. PolitiFact's reverse image search confirmed the footage originates from the November 17, 2023 magnitude 6.8 earthquake in the Philippines, not the June 2026 magnitude 7.8 event. The June 2026 earthquake was real and deadly; this video of it was not.