Old Videos Resurface as Scenes from the Recent Turkey Earthquakes!

In one of the deadliest earthquakes recently experienced in Turkey & neighboring Syria, the massive damages have accounted for as many as 15,000 lives with many thousands of injuries, leaving a number of buildings flattened to the ground. Despite harsh weather conditions, relief teams continue scanning the earthquake-hit area for survivors.

As the entire world morns over this massive humanitarian tragedy, misinformation has also escalated, with the false and misleading content of old photos and videos falsely attributed to the Turkey earthquakes.

Misleading Posts and Facts

Claim 1

Posts are being shared on social media claiming that massive waves had hit Turkey’s coastline, as high as 3 meters high and that there are fears of a tsunami hitting the Turkish coasts during the aftermath of the deadly earthquakes. This narration was shared alongside a video, as seen below.

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Facts

Using Invid-We Verify technology, we did a reverse image search of a few keyframes of the viral video and found the origins of the clip. The people screaming and running out of fierce sea waves on the beach are related to a mini-Tsunami in Durban, South Africa, in 2017. Video footage uploaded by Connect News SA channel five years ago can be seen below.

The international media reported that the condition that occurred in South Africa was due to a cyclone weather system off the coast of Madagascar. A news report can be read here. Archived.

We confirmed the location to be South Africa through Google Earth searches also.

In a Tweet, Turkey's Disaster Management Authorities confirmed that there was no Tsunami risk from the recent earthquake.

Claim 2

Another video which comprised a collection of videos, showed CCTV footage inside the building, seemingly a restaurant, and claimed it was related to the recent earthquake.

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Facts

Using a keyword search, we found more details about this CCTV footage. It was from another big earthquake attributed to Turkey. Turkish social media and local and international mainstream media shared this CCTV footage at that time. One such media report from Mehr News can be found here, which posted the video alongside the caption, “At least 20 buildings in the Turkish city of Izmir alone were destroyed after a strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea on Friday” (Oct 30, 2020)

Here is a Tweet posted in October 2020 titled “CCTV Footage of Horrifying moments of Earthquake #Turkey.”

The US Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the magnitude 7.0 tremor was centered off Turkey's Izmir province on 30^th October 2020. BBC report here

CLAIM 3

The viral video, which depicts a sworn of birds flying over a sky and gathering towards certain towers and etc, being spread on social media, states that it happened in a situation just before the deadly Turkish earthquake.

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It's viral in Tik Tok too.

@mieks44

#earthquake #turkey #pray #faith

♬ original sound - Mieks

Facts

Using Invid- We Verify technology, we found similar videos with this bird flying incident.

The beginning of this bird flying video goes back to the year 2017.

According to a Daily Mail news report in 2017, the visuals show a flock of birds hovering erratically in the sky above a freeway in Houston, US. ‘A driver captured the creepy sight as the birds soared through a dark gray sky,’ the report says. The report can be read here. Archived.

So, it's clear that the video doesn't have a connection with the Turkey earthquake.

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