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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Disasters & emergencies fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about disasters & emergencies. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,259 published reviews in this topic

Sunanda NaikDisasters & emergencies

Image shows landslide at Joshimath, Uttarakhand.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photograph circulated as showing a recent landslide in Joshimath, Uttarakhand. NewsMeter’s investigation says the image was shared amid reports of landslides in the northern Himalaya, alongside text about Joshimath residents being moved and construction work being halted. Its review distinguishes those real circumstances from the photograph’s actual origin: it reports that the image is neither from India nor recent. The review describes two checks. A reverse-image search led to a March 2018 blog post by Dave Petley, then identified as vice-chancellor of the University of Hull, titled “Llusco, Peru: a dramatic landslide has destroyed 100 houses.” The review says Petley’s post included drone footage of the landslide. A subsequent keyword search located the same image in a tweet from Peru’s Ministry of Defence, dated 16 March 2018, whose caption placed the inspection in the landslide-affected district of Llusco, Cusco. Together, the review’s reported matches connect the viral photograph to a landslide in Peru in 2018, rather than to the claimed recent event in Joshimath. The misleading element is the image’s pairing with text about Joshimath: the review does not dispute that Joshimath and other Himalayan towns are prone to subsidence, but explains that this photograph does not depict a Joshimath landslide.

日本ファクトチェックセンターDisasters & emergencies

三重県南東沖で起きた地震は人工地震

Publisher’s rating: 誤り

The review reports that the earthquake off southeastern Mie Prefecture was a natural deep earthquake, not an artificial one. A seismology professor said the waveform matched a normal earthquake; the apparent waveform anomaly came from how the vertical motion was scaled.

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Cet accident c'est passé à Barry début janvier.

Publisher’s rating: La publication et le lien sont des tentatives de hameçonnage, autrement appelé « phishing ». Ce type de fraude en ligne vise à soutirer de l’argent ou d’importantes informations aux utilisateurs. L’accident photographié en fait eu lieu en 2017.

The claim concerns a Facebook post alleging that a crash in Barry, Hainaut, happened at the beginning of January and killed seven young people. The post showed two badly wrecked vehicles and said police were asking witnesses to identify victims through a linked page. The investigation found that the photograph did not show an accident in Belgium: visible French registration plates, including one on a fire engine, and a person wearing a gendarmerie vest pointed to France. The review says a reverse-image search led to reports about a crash in Radinghem, in France’s Pas-de-Calais region. It identifies that photographed crash as having occurred in 2017 and says it killed five people, including two children. Thus, the photo does not substantiate the post’s claim of a recent crash in Barry; it depicts a different event, in another country and at an earlier time. The post also used an urgent appeal supposedly from police and a link to a page named “http://www.okok.fr/63b97347ad8be.” The review describes the appeal as a lure to get users to click and reports that a firewall may block access and warn of a security risk. Its conclusion draws on the mismatch between the claimed location and the image, the image’s earlier provenance, and the suspicious link.

Vishvas NewsDisasters & emergencies

पाच वर्ष जुना धुक्यामध्ये गाड्यांची टक्कर झाल्याचा व्हिडिओ

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video of vehicles colliding in fog, presented in a social-media warning about travelling on highways during foggy conditions. Vishvas News found that the footage was old: it showed a multi-vehicle accident on the Yamuna Expressway in 2017, rather than a newly filmed crash. The review describes the viral post as misleading because it recirculated that older footage in the context of current winter fog.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

A 48-hour time-lapse video showing the recent blizzard in Buffalo city of New York

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show, in a 48-hour time-lapse, the recent blizzard in Buffalo, New York. The review describes the footage as a neighbourhood gradually being covered in snow and addresses whether it depicts that Buffalo storm. It concludes that the video is older footage from a different storm and location. To check its origins, the review says it searched the internet using relevant keywords and found a video with similar visuals published on YouTube on 25 January 2016. The uploader described it as footage of winter storm Jonas in Northern Virginia, captured between 22 and 24 January 2016. The review also reports that a 2016 Daily Mail article identified the scene as a garden in Herndon, Northern Virginia, being covered by snow. The distinction is material: the video’s reported online history and location place it years earlier and outside Buffalo. The review therefore finds that the footage does not show the recent Buffalo blizzard.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Visuals of a vehicles piling-up on a highway in Indore due to dense fog

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns visuals of vehicles piling up on a highway, said to show a recent incident in Indore caused by dense fog. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the footage as an accident on the Agra-Noida Yamuna Expressway in 2017 instead. The location and timing attached to the viral post are therefore misleading, although the review says dense fog and low visibility did contribute to the pile-up. [The statements are supported by the review’s passages identifying the claim and the accident.]