Indonesia has more than 120 active volcanoes, but a widely-shared video of a patch of land that appears to ooze what looks like hot liquid does not show a new one has formed in the archipelago's second biggest city Surabaya. Experts told AFP the video -- viewed millions of times with the false claim -- actually shows mudflow from an abandoned oil well that was drilled in the 1880s during the Dutch colonial era.

"An active volcano suddenly appeared in the centre of Surabaya, East Java," says the Indonesian-language caption to a video shared here on a verified YouTube channel on October 7, 2023.

The 12-minute video -- showing a muddy site near a dense residential area -- has been viewed more than 182,000 times.

From the 28-second mark, a man can be seen inspecting the site from a closer angle and saying it is "the crater of the active volcano".

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide (archived link).

The archipelago's Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center says it is home to more than 120 active volcanoes -- or around a tenth of the total active volcanoes in the world (archived link).

Other videos showing the same area in Surabaya have racked up over 3.1 million combined views alongside a similar false claim here and here on YouTube, and here and here on TikTok.

Some social media users appeared to believe the claim.

"Please be careful. It is a real active...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiLWh0dHBzOi8vZmFjdGNoZWNrLmFmcC5jb20v...