A Chinese media outlet has used a photo of Mayon Volcano’s eruption in 2018 in a Facebook post about the volcano’s current unrest, failing to label the photo as old.
ShanghaiEye, a media brand owned by the state-funded Shanghai Media Group, posted the photo on June 6 accompanied by the caption:
The #Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on Monday raised the alert level over the most active volcano🌋 on the southernmost tip of Luzon island due to "increasing unrest" that can lead to an eruption. The institute raised the alarm for the 2,460-meter Mayon volcano in Albay province, approximately 500 km southeast of Manila, to the second level in a five-level warning system, meaning that current unrest driven by shallow magmatic processes could eventually "lead to phreatic eruptions or even precede hazardous magmatic eruption."
A Google reverse image search shows that the cover photo in the post is an old photo taken by Italian travel photographer Matteo Colombo during the January 2018 eruption.
The same image is listed as a stock photo on Getty Images and has been widely used by many news websites.
The 2018 eruption of Mayon Volcano saw ash plumes rising up as high as 5km, prompting the government to raise an Alert Level 4 warning and evacuate tens of thousands of Albay residents.
Mayon began to show activity again this month, prompting the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) to raise Alert Level 3 and evacuate 12,800 residents as of Monday. Experts say an eruption is possible.
Mayon, known for its near-perfect cone shape, is the most active volcano in the Philippines and has recorded 54 eruptions over the last 400 years.
ShanghaiEye’s Facebook page has a global reach of 2.6 million followers. The post has garnered 161 shares, 84 reactions and 13 comments as of June 12. (JG)