Does a video show a beached shark dying from radioactive contamination following the release of treated water from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant? No, that's not true: The footage of the shark was shot in California in 2017.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) where it was published by @nangezaici on TikTok, on September 10, 2023, with a caption translated into English from Korean by Lead Stories staff that reads:
Impact of Radioactive Contamination
And
Creature in radioactive contamination
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sat Oct 7 16:35:47 2023 UTC)
The video shows a beached white shark dying with a claim that it is suffering from radioactive contamination. The author implies the video is related to the recent release of treated water from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant with hashtags reading #Fukushima #Radioactivewaterelease.
However, the footage was not filmed after the Fukushima treated water release, which started on August 24, 2023, but is originally from a YouTube video posted in 2017, showing a scene on the beach near Pleasure Point, California. The shark was found on April 7, 2017, and local news reports say the shark died from an infection. It is not related to radioactivity or the Sea of Japan and Fukushima.
