Skip to main content

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

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Foto verwoest flatgebouw genomen in 2018 in Magnitogorsk.

Publisher’s rating: De claim is onjuist. Het is een hoax over een vermeende 'hoax'. De betreffende foto is wel degelijk genomen op 24 februari 2022 in Charkov, Oekraïne. De fotograaf is Wolfgang Schwan, die hem in verschillende media en op zijn eigen kanalen publiceerde.

The claim concerned a photograph of a damaged apartment building in Kharkov, Ukraine. Social-media posts said the image was not from the invasion of Ukraine but dated to 2018, showing damage caused by a gas explosion in Magnitogorsk, Russia. The review identifies the image as one taken in Kharkov on 24 February 2022 by photographer Wolfgang Schwan, and says he published it through multiple media outlets and on his own channels. The review compares the buildings shown in the two events: reporting about a gas explosion in Magnitogorsk in late 2018 depicted a building with a different colour and more floors than the damaged Kharkov building. It also points to the photograph’s provenance: Schwan’s page showed media outlets using versions of his photograph, Al Jazeera published additional photographs he took that same day, and Schwan posted the image on his personal Instagram account. The review notes that Dutch media, including NU.nl, also used the image, and explains a possible source of confusion: a Google reverse-image search could display an older date because a newer photograph might be recommended alongside an older article. The review cautions that this displayed article date did not establish when the photograph was taken.

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Storm Eunice is veroorzaakt door het HAARP-project

Publisher’s rating: De machine op de foto heeft niets met weermanipulatie of HAARP te maken. Het is een radar van het Amerikaanse leger om raketten op te sporen. HAARP zelf is ook niet in staat om het weer te beïnvloeden.

The review examines Facebook posts linking Storm Eunice to a photograph of a huge machine described as a “H.A.A.R.P. ELF wave facility.” It identifies Eunice as the storm that crossed the Netherlands and Belgium in February 2022, and says the posts blamed the pictured machine for the storm. The investigation concludes that the machine is not part of HAARP: it is the U.S. military’s Sea-Based X-band Radar, or SBX, used in missile defence. The review distinguishes the radar from HAARP by describing their different functions and signals. The SBX sends X-band radio waves, at frequencies stated as 8 to 12.5 gigahertz, and uses reflected signals to locate objects. By contrast, the review describes HAARP as a research project in Alaska that studies the ionosphere and its possible role in directing radio signals. It says HAARP’s instruments are aimed at the ionosphere, while weather occurs in the troposphere and stratosphere, and that the instruments are not powerful enough to affect weather. For the storm itself, the review says Eunice crossed the Netherlands and Belgium on 18 February 2022. It explains that wind results from air moving from high-pressure to low-pressure areas, and that stronger winter jet-stream winds associated with atmospheric temperature differences can contribute to storms. The cited account therefore gives a meteorological explanation, not a HAARP cause.

Rumor ScannerDisasters & emergencies

৪ দিনের মাথায় মরক্কোর শিশু রায়ান ১০১ ফুট গভীর কুপ থেকে উদ্ধার হলো ঠিকই, কিন্তু শেষ রক্ষা হলো না, কুপে পড়ে যাওয়ার সময় মাথায় আঘাতের ফলে অতিরিক্ত রক্তক্ষরণে শেষ নিশ্বাস ত্যাগ করেছে

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Video of a car driver doing a U-turn on the edge of a cliff

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video showing a car making a U-turn, said to be on the edge of a cliff where a mistake could cost the driver’s life. FACTLY examined the same U-turn and concluded that the cliff-edge description was misleading: footage from another angle showed that the maneuver was not performed at the edge of a cliff. The review says there was instead a road at a lower level beside the path visible in the widely shared view. To locate and compare the footage, the review reports that it searched screenshots from the viral video using Google Reverse Image Search. Among the results, it identified a DrivingSkill YouTube upload dated 25 December 2021 as the earliest upload it found. The review also says that the same channel had uploaded footage of the same car making the U-turn from another angle the previous day. Its conclusion rests on that alternate view, which it says shows the setting beyond the narrow perspective of the shared clip. The review’s conclusion is limited to where the U-turn took place: it says the maneuver was not on the edge of a cliff and that a road lay at some depth beside the path. The supplied excerpt does not identify the location or provide measurements, so those details cannot be established from this evidence.

dpaDisasters & emergencies

Cet accident a couté la vie à sept personnes.

Publisher’s rating: Cette publication est une tentative de « phishing », ou bien d’hameçonnage. L’accident a eu lieu en 2016 dans la région parisienne.

The post shared in a Facebook group on 22 January 2022 used a photograph of a car overturned after a crash. Its caption claimed that seven people had died and others were injured, and invited readers to follow a link for more photos and victims’ identities. The dpa review traced the pictured scene to a collision in Asnières-sur-Seine, in the Paris region, on 6 November 2016—not a 2022 accident in Belgium. The review compared details visible in the image with information from the Paris firefighters: the overturned car, the “Pompiers de Paris” markings on responders, and the photographer’s name and BSPP insignia in the photograph. The firefighters’ account described a driver trapped upside down and held by a seat belt. It said he was taken to hospital in serious condition after about an hour of intervention. The other car involved carried a woman and a seven-year-old girl, who were reported to have minor injuries. These details describe serious injuries, but do not support the post’s claim of seven deaths. The review therefore concluded that the crash shown did not appear to have caused any deaths. The seven-death claim was attached to an older Paris-region crash whose reported circumstances differ from the caption’s account; the post also presented the image as if it depicted a recent local event.

Vishvas NewsDisasters & emergencies

ভিডিঅ’টোত দেখুওৱা হৈছে যে মানুহে বৰফত সমাধিস্থ হোৱা এজনী ছোৱালীক ৰক্ষা কৰিছে। ভিডিঅ’টো শ্বেয়াৰ কৰি দাবী কৰা হৈছে যে ভিডিঅ’টো পাকিস্তানৰ মুৰিৰ, য’ত ছোৱালীজনীক শেহতীয়াকৈ হোৱা হিমস্খলনৰ পৰা উদ্ধাৰ কৰা হৈছে।

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Image related to the recent incident of Train Derailment in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns an image shared as showing the recent derailment of the Bikaner–Guwahati Express in West Bengal. The review distinguishes the fact of that derailment from the image’s provenance: it says the train did derail near New Domohani station, under the Alipurduar Junction division of Northeast Frontier Railway, and that multiple casualties were reported, but concludes that the shared image came from a different accident in Bihar in 2019. The review therefore identifies the image attribution—not the occurrence of the West Bengal derailment—as the issue it checked. [S1: “While it is true that the Bikaner – Guwahati Express got derailed in West Bengal resulting in multiple casualties, the image shared in the post is related to a 2019 train accident from Bihar.”] To check the image, the review reports conducting a reverse-image search. That search led to a Times of India article about the Seemanchal Express derailment on 3 February 2019. The image description there identified rescue workers searching for survivors near Sahadai Buzurg railway station, and credited the image to Reuters. The review says a further keyword search on Reuters’ website located the same image. [S1: “Reverse image search on the image shared in the post led to a Times of India article that reported the derailment of coaches of the Seemanchal Express on 03 February 2019.”] [S1: “A search on the Reuters website with relevant keywords led us to the same image with the title ‘Seven passengers killed when train derails in eastern India‘.”] The review places that image in the Bihar accident: it reports that seven people were killed and several injured when the Delhi-bound Seemanchal Express derailed near Sahadai Buzurg on 3 February 2019. Its account supports the conclusion that the image was from the earlier Bihar incident, not the West Bengal derailment described in the claim. [S1: “Seven persons were reported to have been killed and several others injured when a Delhi-bound Seemanchal Express train was derailed near Sahadai Buzurg railway station, Bihar on 03 February 2019.”]