Delhi quake: Republic ran unrelated videos, including one from Japan, in its reportage

A 4.0-magnitude earthquake shook New Delhi at 5:36 am on February 17. Within hours, media organisations as well as social media users started sharing a CCTV clip from Pakistan claiming it to be a frightening video depicting the New Delhi earthquake.

On February 17 itself, Republic World published a short video on its YouTube channel with the caption ‘Delhi-NCR earthquake: First videos shared by residents are quite disturbing’. This video contains several different clips. In one of them, water is seen spilling out of a bathtub due to the effects of the earthquake. (Archived link)

X-user @theinformant_x, which claims to be an “independent and libertarian journalist covering global news”, shared three videos with a screenshot of a report of the National Center for Seismology on the earthquake. The video of water spilling out of a bathtub was one of them. So was the CCTV footage from Pakistan mentioned above, which Alt News has already debunked. (Archived link)

❗️🇮🇳 – Strong tremors were felt in Delhi this morning.

The shaking continued for several seconds, causing widespread panic as people rushed out of their homes.

The earthquake was measured at a magnitude of 4.0 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter located in Delhi. pic.twitter.com/ZSSAAOk3sm

— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformant_x) February 17, 2025

Fact Check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the short video by Republic World. We found a video of water gushing out of a bathtub uploaded on a YouTube channel called RM Video on February 15, 2021. It is also mentioned that “water was seen gushing out of the bathtub due to shaking during the earthquake in Japan”. (Archived link)

This makes it evident that the video of the bathtub is at least four-year old and has no connection with the recent earthquake in Delhi.

Further investigation led us to find that the bathtub video was not the only one Republic ran falsely in its reports on the February 17 Delhi quake. 

The video of a ceiling fan swaying during a quake — anther clip that Republic ran — was found on the X timeline of ANI Hindi News. It was shared on August 20, 2024. The caption says that this is a video showing a 4.9-magnitude earthquake in Jammu and Kashmir. (Archived link)

In addition, the video of the chandelier shaking, again part of Republic’s Delhi quake reportage, was shared by ANI (Asian News International) on X on January 7, 2025 when it reported on tremors were felt in Sheohar, Bihar, during a 7.1-intensity earthquake. (Archived link)

TV9 Bharatvarsh also published a report on the Delhi earthquake and used a screenshot of the chandelier video as an image from an earthquake in Bihar. (Archived link)

To sum up, news channel Republic World falsely ran at least three unrelated videos in its reportage of the February 17 New Delhi earthquake.