Chinese-language social media posts have repeatedly shared a clip showing scores of dead fish floating at a beach, falsely linking it to the release of treated wastewater from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The video has circulated months before wastewater was first released from the nuclear plant in August 2023, in news reports about thousands of fish that died from a lack of oxygen washing up on the coast of the US state of Texas.

"Masses of dead fish by the sea and the consequence of Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge," reads the Chinese caption of a clip uploaded on the short-video platform Douyin on July 25, 2023.

It shows a massive number of dead fish floating in a stretch of water.

A screenshot of the false post on Douyin, taken on October 2, 2023

The post circulated after Japan's planned discharge of accumulated water from the Fukushima nuclear facility -- crippled by a tsunami in 2011 -- was approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as meeting global standards.

The first phase of wastewater release ran from August 24 to September 11, with a second batch of wastewater to be released from October 5.

Tokyo insists the discharge is safe but China has since banned all seafood imports from its neighbour, accusing it of treating the sea like a "sewer".

Japan's move has unleashed a wave of misinformation in China and neighbouring Korea.

Posts featuring the video of the dead fish continued to be shared on social media through September, such as...

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