WHAT WAS CLAIMED
The HAARP research facility is linked to earthquakes in Venezuela.
OUR VERDICT
False. The radio waves emitted by HAARP can't cause earthquakes.
AAP FACTCHECK - Recent deadly earthquakes in Venezuela were not engineered by humans using a radio wave research facility in Alaska, despite claims online.
Experts say the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) cannot cause earthquakes.
The death toll from magnitude 7.5 and 7.2 earthquakes in Venezuela in June has reached 3342 with 16,470 injured and 17,345 left homeless, local authorities said on Sunday.
An Australian user's Facebook post claims the HAARP, a university-run research facility in Alaska, caused the disaster in the South American country.
"Venezuela got HAARPED. Those 'earthquakes' were engineered," the overlay text reads.
In a follow-up Facebook video, the same user claimed: "Now these earthquakes in Venezuela, we're getting a lot of reports coming in that they're apparently HAARP, or engineered earthquakes.
"These are man-made, unnatural disasters."
AAP FactCheck has previously debunked numerous false claims linking HAARP to earthquakes and other natural disasters.
The facility was built by the US Air Force and Navy and has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 2015.
It features a high-frequency radio-wave transmitter that scientists use to study the upper layer of Earth's atmosphere, known as the ionosphere.
Jesse Kearse, an earth scientist at the Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, said there was no evidence humans could deliberately and remotely generate a large tectonic earthquake similar to the disaster in Venezuela.
"There is no credible scientific evidence that technologies designed to interact with the atmosphere or ionosphere, including high-frequency radio transmission systems, can trigger or control large earthquakes," Dr Kearse told AAP FactCheck.
Large earthquakes occurred when stress generated by the movements of the Earth's tectonic plates was suddenly released along a fault zone, he said.
"The fault that ruptured during the Venezuela earthquake was already known to be active and capable of producing large earthquakes," he said.
"Although we can identify faults that are capable of generating damaging earthquakes, current science cannot predict exactly when a large earthquake will occur."
Experts have previously told AAP FactCheck that claims linking HAARP to natural disasters were "nonsense" and that the facility did not have the power to generate weather.
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