The recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria is a deep tragedy that has affected the nations and will continue to haunt them as the tremors carry on. However, between the onslaught of prayers and condolences for the aggrieved, a lot of fake and misleading media is being circulated by several accounts on social media. It’s important to keep in mind that such false messages are deeply disrespectful to the plight of the sufferers and also the public who’s trying to get to know more about this event. In the following report, the DFRAC team has fact-checked some of these false pictures which are being shared over Twitter.
- Misinformation 1
Miralem Pjanić is a Bosnian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for UAE Pro League club Sharjah and the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team. He has 6.2 million followers on Instagram where, in order to sympathize with the people affected by the earthquake, he recently posted this image-
Fact check-
This image has actually been circulated by other accounts as well but it is misleading because it was taken years ago by a photographer in the context of the Syrian war conflict. The DFRAC team did a reverse image search and found a lot of these pictures on Adobe Stock images. The photographer herself has posted on Facebook to provide some clarity. DFRAC was also able to find out this exact post and a screenshot of the English translation is given below-
Facebook post of the photographer
- Misinformation 2
A Twitter user, Zoya Hashmi, posted a tweet claiming “#earthquake & #Tsunami in #Turkey. #Syria has also been affected by the Tsunami. #Italy has issued an alter”
Fact Check-
The referred video is an old one from the Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011, not from the recent earthquakes in Turkey, which can be seen with the link given below-
- Misinformation 3
An account, claiming to be a news channel from Pakistan, tweeted “Turkey’s Nuclear plant is on Fire”
Fact Check –
The video is actually footage of a massive explosion in the Chinese city of Tianjin, taken in 2015. The youtube link where you can find out more about this is also given below-
Reuters also reported on the same, confirming that the Turkish nuclear plant did not, in fact, explode-
- Misinformation 4
A Twitter handle by the name of Biswasundar Barik tweeted “Prayers for #Turkey #Syria… From India. May GOD help and protect those who are affected and have mercy on everyone”
Screenshot of the Tweet
Fact check-
He was found by the DFRAC team to have used two pieces of media, one of which was a video of the Beirut explosion which took place in 2020.
Screenshot of the Youtube video
- Misinformation 5
A Twitter user named Harish Deshmukh tweeted “Tsunami and Earthquake in Turkey”
Fact Check-
He has since then deleted his tweet which had earlier spread misinformation, claiming that a tsunami followed the earthquake in Turkey. He used footage of the tsunami that had taken place in Durban, South Africa to emphasize his false claim. Although there are fears and predictions of an incoming tsunami in Turkey, no such thing has happened, as of now.
Screenshot of the Youtube video
- Misinformation 6
Another user on Twitter, @Headlineznow has posted a tweet “Inside visuals of Turkey Famous Hotel …”.
Fact Check-
This tweet has gained millions of views. However, these millions of viewers are being misled because this video is a very old one- it’s of the earthquake that happened in the city of Izmir in 2020. The DFRAC did a reverse image search and it turned out that many Turkish media like Yenik Safak, Mehr Newsagency, etc. had reported it around 3 years ago. We also found tweets of 2020 with the same video.
- Misinformation 7
A Twitter account run by someone called ‘Sabir Khan’ posted the following tweet with “Heartbreaking Photo of the day”, implying that the picture of the rescue dog was from the Turkey- Syria earthquake.
Fact Check-
DFRAC team investigated and found out that this was an old image that was taken by a photographer called Jaroslav Noska and uploaded on the website of iStockphoto on January 04, 2019.
- Misinformation 8
Sudhir Chaudhary who hosts a show on Aaj Tak News Channel tweeted “A lesson for those who live in high rise buildings. What happens to buildings in strong earthquakes? This video is about the recent earthquake in Syria.”
Fact Check-
The DFRAC investigated the source of the video he shared and it was revealed that this footage actually occurred in Turkey, as reported by the likes of CBS and Sky News.
Screenshot of the Sky news website
- Misinformation 9
Yet another Twitter handle which claims to be an Iranian media and press account has circulated a video that seems to be going viral. DFRAC has already covered this case in detail and you can find it here. This account is called IPNA and in the video shows a man jumping off a building to save himself from the earthquake. Social media users claim that people jump from the buildings due to Turkey’s M7.8 powerful earthquake. IPNA tweets “A person throws himself from above to escape #earthquakeinturkey #Turkey #syria #earthquakes.”
Fact Check-
The team of DFRAC initially converted the video into several keyframes and reverse image searched those keyframes, and found out that media houses like Yenisafak, Indyturk, etc. had already covered this report in 2022, with Yenisafak stating: “Man injured after jumping from the balcony during an earthquake in Turkiye”
Source- yenisafak
Source- indyturk
It was reported that 4 people were injured in the 08.5- magnitude earthquake that occurred in the Northern area of Duzce in 2022, not the one that happened most recently. Hence, this video is also widely misleading.
