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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

Rumor ScannerDisasters & emergencies

পাকিস্তান থেকে আসা ( 521 ) Emarat Airlines এর একটি বিমান Sharjah Airport এ লেন্ডিং গিয়ার ব্লক হয়ে যাওয়ার কারনে অবতরণ করার সময় মাটিতে আছড়ে পড়ে বিমানে থাকা ২০৮ জন যাত্রীর মধ্যে ১৭৪ জন মৃত্যু বরণ করেন এবং ৩৪ জন প্রাণে বাঁচলেও তাদের অবস্থা গুরুতর

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Video of a man falling into a pit and disappearing completely

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The reviewed post presented a video of a person jumping over a fence, falling into a pit, and disappearing. FACTLY’s conclusion distinguishes the genuine fall from the video’s misleading impression: the person did fall, but did not vanish. To check the footage, the review says it ran screenshots through Google Reverse Image Search and found similar videos. It also located versions posted by a user on Twitter and on Instagram. According to the review, the original version shows the person getting up immediately after the fall and walking away—evidence that directly contradicts the claim that he disappeared completely. The review therefore says the shared video was edited: the fall happened, but the disappearance shown or implied by the circulated version did not. This distinction matters because the claim is not simply that a person fell into a pit; it is that he disappeared completely.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Video of a bull hitting a woman crossing the street is from India

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video showing a bull hitting a woman as she crosses a street, which social-media posts said was filmed in India. FACTLY’s review identifies the incident as having happened in Maltepe, a district of Istanbul, Turkey, on 30 August 2017—not in India. It reports that the bull escaped from a nearby animal market and attacked the woman in the street.

Vishvas NewsDisasters & emergencies

पोस्ट मध्ये दावा करण्यात येत होते कि सीएनएन चॅनेल ने कॅनडा मध्ये लागलेली आग, युक्रेन चे सांगून दर्शकांना बातमी दाखवली, पोस्ट मध्ये हे देखील सांगितले होते कि तिथल्या अग्निशमन दलाच्या लोकांनी एडमंटन चे जॅकेट घातले होते, जे मुळात कॅनडा मध्ये आहे.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Ces publications montrent des accidents récents et lancent des appels à témoins.

Publisher’s rating: Il s’agit d’une tentative d’hameçonnage, aussi appelée « phishing ». C'est une fraude en ligne visant à soutirer de l’argent ou d’importantes informations aux utilisateurs.

The review investigates three Facebook posts that paired traffic-accident photos with urgent appeals for witnesses and purported links to additional images. The posts used the same appeal text but showed different photos and claimed different locations. Although they presented the accidents as having happened “just now,” the review’s image-search checks found that none of the three photos showed a current accident. The review reports that reverse-image searches traced one photo to a Seraing accident in 2017, another to a road accident in Châtelet in 2019, and the third to an accident in France’s Corrèze department in 2021. These findings directly contradict the posts’ presentation of the pictured events as recent; the witness appeals did not establish that the incidents were new. The purported image links also raised a separate concern: users were directed to what looked like a Facebook login form on an external site, rather than to the promised images. The review identifies the displayed URL as lightstudio.vn and reports that the site was hosted in Vietnam. Taken together, the old accident images and the external imitation login page explain why the posts were treated as an attempt to obtain users’ information, rather than reliable notices about recent accidents.

Vishvas NewsDisasters & emergencies

The post claimed that CNN channel passed on Canada’s fire as that of Ukraine’s.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post said CNN had passed off a Canadian fire as one in Ukraine because a firefighter in its image wore a jacket marked “Edmonton.” The review identified the firefighter as being in Lviv, Ukraine, and examined whether the jacket showed that the footage had been misrepresented. It found the post’s conclusion false: Edmonton gear had been donated to Ukrainian firefighters, so the city name on the coat did not establish that the fire was in Canada. S1 describes the image as “a firefighter in Lviv, Ukraine” and says the review found that “the coat which had Edmonton written on it had been donated by Firefighter Aid Ukraine.” The review reports that it searched Twitter and Facebook for the claim, then found a Firefighter Aid Ukraine post describing donated bunker gear being distributed in Lviv in 2017. It also cites a CBC report about Edmonton firefighters and dispatchers delivering protective suits and other equipment to Ukraine. These sources support the explanation for the Edmonton label: the gear was donated, rather than evidence that CNN had used footage of a Canadian fire. The review states that the organization “is based out of Edmonton” and “donates gear to Ukraine from fire departments in Canada.” For physical verification, the review says it contacted CNN’s head of strategic communications. According to the review, he confirmed that Edmonton gear in Lviv came through Firefighter Aid Ukraine and pointed to a 2017 photo of the organization distributing an Edmonton coat there. This supports the review’s conclusion about the jacket’s provenance; the supplied excerpt does not independently establish further details about the circumstances of the fire.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Visuals of the recent China plane crash

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerned two videos shared as visuals of the recent crash of a Boeing 737-800 in southern China. FACTLY’s review says the crash involved 132 people and concludes that neither video depicts it. Instead, the videos show two unrelated events: a 2019 aircraft fire in Russia and a fire in a Chinese village. The post therefore presented unrelated footage as evidence of the crash. For the first video, the review reports using reverse image search on screenshots and finding a YouTube video with similar visuals. That video, uploaded on 06 May 2019, identified the aircraft as a Russian Aeroflot plane at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The review says it caught fire after a crash landing on 05 May 2019. It further identifies the flight as Aeroflot Flight SU1492 and reports that 41 people died; the aircraft was carrying 73 passengers and five crew members. For the second video, FACTLY says the footage shows flames among trees, with no plane visible. Reverse image search and relevant-keyword searches led to similar footage on a Chinese website, which attributed it to an ancestor-worship-related fire in a village in Fujian province. The review also reports that AFP Fact Check asked a Chinese government spokesperson about the same video, who confirmed it showed a hillside fire in a local village on 20 March 2022. These findings distinguish both videos from the crash footage claimed in the post.

Rumor ScannerDisasters & emergencies

আনন্দ ভ্রমণ মুহূর্তেই কেড়ে নিল ১৭ জন মাদ্রাসা ছাত্র-শিক্ষকের তাজা প্রাণ ৷ আরো অনেকেই নিখোঁজ রয়েছেন ৷ রবিবার দুপুর ২ টায় নারায়ণগঞ্জ থেকে মুন্সিগঞ্জ আসার পথে শীতলক্ষ্যা নদীর কয়লাঘাট এলাকায় কার্গো জাহাজের ধাক্কায় যাত্রীবাহী লঞ্চ এম ভি আশরাফ উদ্দিন ডুবে যায়।

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Un accident de la circulation à Liège avec sept morts. La police demande des informations.

Publisher’s rating: Il s’agit d’une arnaque. L’accident, réel, s’est en réalité produit le 5 septembre 2020 à Courcelles, à proximité de Charleroi. Les escrocs tentent d’extorquer les données privées des personnes se laissant prendre à leur piège. Danger.

The post described an accident as having happened “just now” in Liège, claimed seven young people had died and an eighth was near death, and urged readers to consult friends and family in response to an alleged police request. The review identifies the post as having appeared on Facebook on 16 March 2022 and says it included photos and videos presented as evidence of the scene. The crucial distinction is that the images were associated with a real crash, but not with the claimed place, time or number of deaths. [S1: “Un horrible accident de la circulation s'est produit a l'instant à Liège. Sept jeunes âgés de 14 à 23 ans sont décédés. Une huitième victime est entre la vie et la mort. La police nous demande en urgence de consulter nos amis, nos collègues, notre famille.”; “écrit l’auteure du message sur Facebook le 16 mars 2022.”] The review traces the accident shown in the post to Courcelles, near Charleroi, on 5 September 2020—not Liège in March 2022. It quotes reports from three Belgian newspapers describing a car leaving the road near a school on rue du Général De Gaulle shortly before 6 a.m. The driver, aged 20, died; the two passengers were seriously injured. That account contradicts the post’s claim of seven deaths. [S1: “L’accident dont l’auteure du message publie les photos s’est en réalité produit à Courcelles, à proximité de Charleroi, le 5 septembre 2020.”; “Une voiture, avec trois personnes à son bord, a effectué une sortie de route, à hauteur d’une école, sur la rue du Général De Gaulle. Le conducteur, âgé de 20 ans, n’a pas survécu. Ses deux passagers, également dans la vingtaine, sont grièvement blessés.”] The review also describes warning signs in the post itself: its author’s profile offered little information, and the post directed interested readers to a Vietnamese website. It says the dpa fact-checking service had encountered similar deceptive messages used to obtain victims’ personal and banking data. These details support treating the post as a scam, rather than as a genuine urgent police appeal. [S1: “Autre motif de méfiance : l’auteure du message invite les personnes que cela intéresserait à se connecter sur un site… vietnamien.”; “les arnaqueurs tentent en réalité d’extorquer les données personnelles, y compris bancaires, de leurs victimes.”]

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Deze bus van De Lijn die uitbrandde in Geraardsbergen was een elektrisch model.

Publisher’s rating: Er brandde op 22 februari 2022 inderdaad een bus van De Lijn uit in Geraardsbergen. Maar het ging om een ouder model uit 2008 met verbrandingsmotor. Geen elektrische bus dus.

The claim concerned a video of a burning bus near the hospital in Geraardsbergen, shared with a caption calling it an electric De Lijn bus. The review says a De Lijn bus did catch fire there on 22 February 2022, but identifies it as an older 2008 model with a combustion engine, rather than an electric bus. It reports that the vehicle belonged to a De Lijn subcontractor and that De Lijn spokesperson Marco Demerling confirmed it was not electric. (S1: “De beoordeling” and “Het ging namelijk om een ouder model uit 2008, in het bezit van een onderaannemer van De Lijn.”; “Het was dus geen elektrische bus”, bevestigde Marco Demerling, woordvoerder van De Lijn, aan dpa.) To establish where the video was filmed, the review compared visible street features in the footage with photographs of the incident published by Het Nieuwsblad. It describes a low brick garden wall and a no-entry traffic sign as matching features. The review concluded that the video showed the intersection of Kattestraat and Guilleminlaan, the reported location of the fire. (S1: “Op foto's in de verslaggeving van Het Nieuwsblad is de straat, met een lage bakstenen tuinmuur en een verkeersbord 'verboden richting' duidelijk herkenbaar. Dat komt overeen met de video.”; “Die werd dus gefilmd op de kruising van de Kattestraat en de Guilleminlaan en dat was dan ook de locatie van de brand.”) The review also notes that the fire’s exact cause was not yet fully known and that an investigation was ongoing. It reports no injuries, while two nearby parked cars also caught fire. Those details do not change the identification of the bus’s engine type, but they distinguish what was established about the incident from what remained unresolved. (S1: “De exacte oorzaak van de brand is voorlopig nog niet volledig duidelijk. Het onderzoek loopt nog. Gelukkig waren er geen slachtoffers maar twee geparkeerde wagens in de buurt gingen mee in vlammen op.”)