Unrelated Visuals Peddled As Recent Türkiye Earthquake
BOOM found that the two visuals are not from Türkiye or Syria, but from completely unrelated incidents of earthquakes that took place in the past.
Two old and unrelated videos are going viral online as videos from the recent earthquake that struck Türkiye and Syria. BOOM found that the first video is from Nepal, and the second is from Trinidad and Tobago.
Türkiye and Syria were hit with an intense earthquake of 7.8 magnitude on 6 February, 2023, resulting in a death toll of more than 23,000 and counting.
The first videos shows a CCTV footage with a street view. In the video, people are struggling to hold on to something stable as the earthquake begins and the road and cars start moving. The second video is also a CCTV footage from inside a supermarket and shows products falling off of the racks due to the violent shaking.
It is being shared on Facebook with the caption, "Devastating videos of earthquakes that claimed thousands of lives"
Click here to view.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that both the videos are from unrelated earthquakes that happened in the past.
Video 1
Taking a cue from the date mentioned on the top right of the video, we searched for earthquake videos that were uploaded around 25 April, 2015 and found videos from Nepal.
We also tried to look for videos uploaded by news outlets in Nepal, and found a video by Kantipur TV on YouTube. A 4-minute version of the viral video was uploaded by the channel on May 19, 2015. The caption read, "CCTV footage of Thapathali during Earthquake on 25 April 2015"
A portion from the 1:28 mark has been lifted from this video and used in the viral video.
The red and white license plates of the vehicles in the video also match Nepal's, whereas Türkiye usually has black and white license plates.
We also noticed a public transport vehicle at the 1:01 mark of the video.
There are four locations mentioned in Hindi at the back of this vehicle. Of these, Lagankhel and Jawalakhel are in the Lalitpur district of Nepal, and Koteshwar is located in Kathmandu.
Video 2
A reverse image search of visuals from this clip led us to a Facebook video uploaded on August 23, 2018.
According to the caption, the video is from a supermarket in Trinidad and Tobago. According to Loop News, an 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck Trinidad and Tobago on 21 August, 2018.
BOOM could not verify the exact location of the video, but it is at least as old as August 2018 and not from the recent Türkiye-Syria earthquake.
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