3400 Europe Media Monitor (EMM) reads and analyses around 40.000 new news items per day from around 1000 sites worldwide. The text of the items, extracted using EMM's own text extraction algorithm, is indexed using Lucene (see http://lucene.apache.org). Please make sure your area of interest is not already covered by one of the pre-defined categories (alerts). If it is, we kindly ask you to use the feed from that category as this significantly reduces the load on our system. This site is a joint project of DG-JRC and DG-COMM. The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer (see http://europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm). Please acknowledge EMM when (re)using this material https://today.rtl.lu/news/fact-check/a/2152125.htmlFollowing a powerful earthquake in early December, false social media posts have emerged claiming the body of a mythical human-like sea creature washed ashore in the southern Philippines. But the photos in these posts show a sculpture by a US-based artist, while experts confirmed no such creature exists.2023-12-27T10:30+0100FCK-today-rtlLuxembourg-5da6b293226a0258ea954f3da803707620231227103000https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/8756116/mag4quake-Dec-27-2023-Indonesia-Molucca-Sea.htmlNearby places The closest larger town where the quake might have been felt is Bitung, a city with more than 137,400 inhabitants in , in 117 km (73 mi) distance west of the epicenter. People likely experienced very weak shaking shaking there. The following table shows some of the places that might have been affected by the shaking.2023-12-27T01:21+0100volcanodiscovery-d98ecf6144a2f53aa03ca09a0ada5bb020231227012100https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/8755225/mag3quake-Dec-26-2023-Indonesia-Molucca-Sea.htmlNearby places The closest larger town where the quake might have been felt is Bitung, a city with more than 137,400 inhabitants in , in 125 km (78 mi) distance southwest of the epicenter. People likely experienced very weak shaking shaking there. The following table shows some of the places that might have been affected by the shaking.2023-12-26T12:50+0100volcanodiscovery-b2178f3c91567d58ca37426cbd71aaef20231226125000https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/8755139/mag3quake-Dec-26-2023-Philippines-097-km-N-74-E-of-Hinatuan-Surigao-Del-Sur.htmlNearby places The closest larger town where the quake might have been felt is Barcelona, a town with 3,500 inhabitants in , in 96 km (60 mi) distance southwest of the epicenter. People likely experienced very weak shaking shaking there. In the capital Manila, 949 km (589 mi) away from the epicenter, the earthquake could not be felt.2023-12-26T12:19+0100volcanodiscovery-5bbce0fdb26884bb24086ee7277151a520231226121900