A YouTube video intended to showcase the success of a bullfrog raising plan to protect crops in a southern Vietnamese province has been mistaken as a natural phenomenon linked to earthquake, thus feeding rumors that a disaster is in store.

Rumors have been sweeping through Tay Ninh, around 100km from Ho Chi Minh City, since Wednesday, when the footage showing hundreds of jumping bullfrogs in what appears to be a sugarcane farm surfaced online.

Some local newswires have published stories about what they called “an unusual phenomenon,” and cited experts as saying it was a case of “animals predicting earthquakes.”

Several studies on the world suggest that animals such as toads, frogs and snakes could behave oddly and relocate when they sense an earthquake is coming.

The location of the video is identified as Thanh Long Commune in Chau Thanh District.

Such reports thus resulted in widespread rumors among Tay Ninh residents that the district will be hit by an earthquake. Though unverified, the information has led to panic among locals in the area that has never been hit by any quake.

However, Nguyen Trong Hoa, director of a local sugarcane farm and who admits to have posted the video on YouTube, said these are all false and groundless hearsays.

Hoa said raising bullfrogs is among many measures the farm has applied to improve the ecosystem and protect its crops.

“Bullfrogs kill pests and thus help protect the crops from borers,” he explained, speaking to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday.

Borers are insects that bore into sugarcane trees. These pests last year destroyed nearly 1,200 hectares of cane crop of the farm, according to the director.

“We have tried to stop locals from entering the farm to hunt for frogs, toads, snakes and birds to protect the crops, but they still defied the ban,” Hoa said.

“We thus had to buy 60kg of frogs and small bullfrogs from locals around six months ago, and sent the amphibians back to the farm as protective tools.”

The bullfrogs are thus meant to help kill insects and pests for the farm, and the video was posted online in order to “show off [my] efforts,” Hoa admitted.

“I had not expected to see it going viral like that,” he added.

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