Old photos are shared linking them to the recent Turkey earthquake - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 13, 2023
A post which sends a condolence message to the people affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is being shared on social media. This post contains a few photos that allegedly show the earthquake’s aftermath. Let’s fact-check these photos through this article.
Claim: Photos showing the scene of Turkey and Syria after the recent earthquake.
Fact: Out of the four photos in the post, only two were taken after the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. The photo of a child crouching and holding his head with his hands among the debris of a building is an old stock photo which is available on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. The photographer of that picture clarified through her Facebook, in which she mentioned that it was captured in Ukraine. Another photo which was not taken during the recent Turkey earthquake is of a man holding bread while he wipes his tears. This was captured in 1999 during the Turkey earthquake. Hence the claim made in the post is Misleading.
Photo 1:
To learn more about the photo, we performed a reverse image search on ‘Tineye.’ This search led us to stock image websites (here and here). Further, we also found an article from March 2022 with the same photo.
The name of the photographer, according to Shutterstock, is Zapylaieva Hanna. Links to Hanna’s social media accounts are also available on Shutterstock. We went through the profile to see if she had posted the picture there and came across a clarification message in which she said that this picture was captured by her in Ukraine in 2018.
Photo 2:
Performing a reverse image search on this image led us to a news report which contained this image. According to the report, the picture was captured while rescue operations were happening in the Baghlar city of Diyarbakir.
Photo 3:
This photo was taken during the 1999 Turkey earthquake. A reverse image search on this led us to a news article which was published before 2023. This article from 2019 which was published by star.com lists the photos that were captured after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Gölcük, Kocaeli on August 17, 1999. This photo can also be seen in these articles (here and here)
Photo 4:
This photos was captured after the 2023 Turkey earthquake. According to CNN, this is the aerial view of the buildings that were damaged in Hatay, Turkey. The same pictures can be seen in these articles here and here.
To sum it up, this post shares a few old photos and links them to the recent Turkey earthquake.