Claim
People are swept away by the water from a rooftop swimming pool in Thailand’s Bangkok after a devastating earthquake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar on Friday.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
Death Toll Tops 1,000
Two back-to-back earthquakes of magnitudes 7.7 and 6.4 struck Myanmar on Friday, killing at least 684 and injuring 1,670 while the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Thailand’s capital Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre. Strong aftershocks were also felt in Meghalaya and several northeastern states, Bangladesh, and China’s southwest Yunnan province.
Fact
Newschecker noticed that the signboards outside the shops were in Chinese, raising our doubts regarding the location of the video.
We then ran a reverse image search of the keyframes, which led us to this Daily Mail report, dated March 28, 2025, sharing a longer version of the viral video, headlined, “Shocking moment rooftop infinity pool in China sweeps away shoppers during earthquakes that also devastated Myanmar and Thailand.” Strong tremors were reported in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, with two people slightly injured in Ruili, a city bordering Myanmar, Beijing-based CCTV reportedly said.
“This is the shocking moment a rooftop infinity pool in China swept away terrified shoppers after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on Friday, killing more than 150 people. The devastating quake sent shockwaves across the region, reaching countries like Thailand and China. In Yunnan province, southwestern China, tremors caused a roof-top pool on a high-rise building to collapse, sending a huge wave of water falling onto the streets below,” read the Daily Mail report. Similar reports can be seen here, here, here, here and here, stating that water from an infinity pool on the top floor of a building in Ruili, Yunnan province, swept away people walking below.
The longer version of the viral video in the reports showed the aftermath, where you can clearly see the signs reading, “Parking Lot Entrance (in Chinese)”,“China Pacific Life Insurance” and “Ruili Fortune Plaza”.
We looked up the corresponding location on China’s Baidu Maps — F1, Ruili Fortune Plaza, Nanmao Street, Ruili City, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province — which although did not provide street views, showed photos similar to the viral video, confirming that the viral video is not from Thailand nor Myanmar, but China.
Comparison of the screengrab of the viral video (left) with the photo on Baidu Maps.
Comparison of the screengrabs of the longer version of the video in news reports.(left and top-right) with the viral video (bottom-right).
Sources
Daily Mail report, March 28, 2025
MSN report, March 28, 2025
Baidu Maps
Image Analysis
