Old photo of Turkey quake falsely linked to Tibet jolt

After a devastating earthquake hit China’s remote Tibet region, a photo of destroyed buildings and cars spread widely in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed the aftermath of the disaster. The photo was in fact taken in Turkey’s Hatay province after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in February 2023.

“Very Strong earthquake M 7.1 China Nepal. At least 53 people are dead after a 7.1-magnitude quake in China Tibet. My prediction successful,” read an X post written in Nepali and English posted on January 7.

It shared a dramatic photo of collapsed buildings surrounded by debris, next to a Turkish shop sign reading: “Mursaloğlu Cam Balkon”.

The photo spread in news reports and social media posts in various languages — including English, Hindi, French and Vietnamese — after an earthquake jolted China’s remote Tibet region on January 7, leaving at least 126 people dead (archived link).

Another 188 were injured and thousands of buildings damaged in the quake that struck rural, high-altitude Tingri county, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Mount Everest near China’s border with Nepal. Tremors were also felt in neighbouring Nepal and India, though no casualties were reported.

The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) measured the quake’s magnitude as 6.8, while the US Geological Survey reported it as 7.1.

Screenshot of the falsely shared X post, captured on January 9, 2024

However, a reverse image search of the photo on Google found it published in a news report about a quake on February 6, 2023 that killed more than 50,000 people across southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria (archived here).

“Why were we caught unprepared by the Kahramanmaraş earthquake,” read the headline of the article in The Architect’s Newspaper from March 31, 2023 (archived link).

Kahramanmaras is a Turkish city lying just 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the epicentre of the first big quake.

The story was written by Turkish urban planner Tayfun Kahraman, who explored lessons to be learned from the tremor from an architectural and urban planning perspective.

The photo shared in false social media posts featured in the article with the caption: “Earthquake damage in İskenderun, a city along the Mediterranean Sea in Turkey’s Hatay province (Çağlar Oskay/Unsplash)”.

A keyword search on Google found the original photo published on the stock image website Unsplash by photographer Çağlar Oskay on February 24, 2023 (archived link).

The photo caption said it was taken in İskenderun on February 6, 2023.

AFP used the shop sign in the photo to geolocate it to 86 Ziya Gökalp Cd in İskenderun (archived link).

More than 850,000 buildings crumbled in the initial quake and the thousands of aftershocks that followed (archived link).

A year later, hundreds of thousands remain displaced, many of them living in container cities.

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