Video of beluga whales on Kamchatka beach unrelated to earthquakepublished at 11:18 British Summer Time

11:18 BST

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist

A video of five beluga whales stranded on the shore of Kamchatka – in Russia’s Far East – is being widely circulated online, with false claims that it was nature’s warning ahead of the massive earthquake.

However, the video is from two years ago and it is not linked to today’s earthquake and tsunami.

A screenshot of a tweet on X. It says "Animals are more smart than us. The 5 beluga whales on the shore of Kamchatka, Russia. Local fishermen rushed to help, keeping them safe and cool for hours. When the tide returned, all five swam back to the ocean after the earthquake". Underneath the text is an embed of the video.Image source, X

In the clip, which has been viewed millions of times today, a Russian man films five beluga whales on the coast, while another man attends to them.

An account on X which posts videos about nature shared the video yesterday, saying: “A strong tide stranded five beluga whales on the shore of Kamchatka, Russia.”

Many users shared the video following the earthquake, claiming it was a warning.

“The animals warned us and we didn’t listen,” claimed one user in a viral post.

But by taking screengrabs of the video and reverse searching them, we can establish that the video was first shared on YouTube in August 2023, external by a local news outlet in Kamchatka, and is therefore not related to today’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami.