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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.

3,262 published reviews in this topic

Fact CrescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: Australia wild fire images

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: Partly False

The review investigated photographs shared with the claim that they showed animals burned in Australia’s wildfires. It reports that the Facebook post combined images presented as connected to the fires, and explains that the outbreak and resulting wildlife losses were real, but that many of the photographs were old or from elsewhere. Its conclusion therefore concerns the mixed provenance of the images, not whether Australia experienced wildfires. To check the images, the review says it searched them individually using Google reverse-image search and examined when they had appeared online. It identifies the tiger image as circulating since 2012 and says it was actually taken during a fire in Indonesia. Other examples include a cow’s carcass from a 2017 fire in New South Wales, photographs from California fires in 2016 and 2018, and an image associated with a 2013 event. The review also says one image showed a kangaroo raised at a wildlife park after being rescued in 2013, rather than an animal recently harmed by the fires. The review did not classify every image as false: it describes several as genuine images of the then-current Australian fires, including images numbered 6–12 and 20–23 in the post. Its central finding is that the post mixed current Australian-fire images with old or unrelated ones, creating a misleading overall impression about the collection. The excerpt does not provide the images themselves or independent records for each identification, so those details are attributable to the review’s reported checks.

The QuintDisasters & emergencies

Gurgaon - Sohna road today, Pl don't drive in foggy conditions

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim paired footage of a multi-vehicle pile-up with the warning, “Gurgaon-Sohna road today, Pl don't drive in foggy conditions.” The review found that the video did not show an accident on that road that day: it identified the footage as showing a 2017 crash at Palwal National Highway No. 2, near Alhapur. The review’s conclusion therefore concerns the video’s claimed location and timing, not whether driving in fog can be hazardous. To trace the footage, the review says it reverse-image-searched a keyframe and found a YouTube video uploaded by News Nation in 2017. Its title described an accident due to fog and smog on the Delhi-Chandigarh Highway and included the date 9/11/2017. The review also says a Google keyword search led to an India Today report identifying the incident as having occurred near Alhapur. It reports that a woman died and several people were injured in the crash, in which nearly two dozen vehicles, including a school bus, piled up.

Fact crescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: China rescued a baby from 300 feet borewell

Publisher’s rating: Fact crescendo Rating: Partly False

The review says the Chinese child fell into a 300-foot-deep borewell in 2016, but became trapped only about 37–38 feet down and was rescued alive. Thus, the video does not show a child being rescued from 300 feet below ground.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

A man electrocuted at the Secunderabad Railway Station

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show a man being electrocuted at Secunderabad Railway Station in Telangana. FACTLY’s review says the video instead shows a man deliberately touching a high-tension wire at Malda Town Railway Station in West Bengal, and identifies the incident as a suicide. The location mismatch is central: the video’s incident was not at Secunderabad. To check the claim, the review says it searched Google using the keywords ‘Man committing suicide by electrocution at a railway station.’ It found the same video in an article on Hood site, which identified the man as Binod Bhuiyan and placed the incident at Malda Town Railway Station. FACTLY then searched for further reports and found an article from Patrika that, according to the review, corroborated the location. The review’s conclusion rests on matching the circulating video to reports that identify a different station and state. It does not provide a date for the incident in the supplied text, nor does it describe independent verification of the man’s identity beyond the reports it found. Its account therefore supports rejecting the claimed Secunderabad location, while the specific identity and circumstances are reported through those articles.

Pesa CheckDisasters & emergencies

Photos from the West Pokot 2019 landslide

Publisher’s rating: PARTLY FALSE

Related reporting identifies the West Pokot claim as a prior use of the same photograph, but the supplied excerpt does not include the details or findings of the 2019 fact-check itself. The article currently excerpted examines a later claim about the photo: that it showed an October 2025 landslide in Elgeyo Marakwet, Kenya. It reports that a reverse-image search traced the image to a landslide in Peru in 2018, rather than to either Kenyan event. The reported provenance points to Llusco district in Cusco, Peru. The excerpt says the Peruvian Ministry of Defence posted the photograph on 16 March 2018, and quotes the account describing an inspection overflight in the landslide-affected area. It also says a Wikipedia page captioned the image as a 2018 landslide near Cusco. This supports the conclusion that the photograph is Peruvian, while the excerpt’s reference to the 2019 West Pokot debunk establishes that the same image had previously been misidentified as showing the Kenyan landslide.

Pagella PoliticaDisasters & emergencies

«In questi casi [riferimento alle calamità naturali che hanno colpito l'Italia nell'autunno 2019 n.d.r.] dovrebbe intervenire il Fondo di Solidarietà Europeo, istituito appositamente per rispondere alle grandi calamità naturali. Ma l’Europa dorme, se ne frega»

Publisher’s rating: Panzana pazzesca

The claim was made by M5S deputy Michele Gubitosa in a Facebook post about the bad weather that had recently affected Italy. He accused the EU of failing to activate the European Solidarity Fund and said Europe was indifferent. The review’s central finding is that this blamed the wrong party for the fund not yet being activated: the process begins with a formal application from the affected country, not an automatic EU response. The review reports that Italy had not submitted one at the time it checked. The review says it contacted Italy’s Civil Protection Department, which confirmed that the application had not yet been sent to the European Commission. It explains that the application must document and quantify the damage, a complex task that takes time. Under Article 4 of the fund’s governing regulation, the competent national authorities must apply as soon as possible and no later than twelve weeks after the first damage from a natural disaster. Thus, the absence of EU funding action at that point did not establish that the EU was refusing to help: Italy had not yet filed the request needed to start the process. The review also places the fund’s record in context, reporting that by 30 April 2019 it had made 79 allocations to 24 member states and that Italy had received nearly €2.8 billion, more than any other EU country. That history does not determine the outcome of the 2019 application, but it undercuts the broader implication that Europe had simply disregarded Italy. The review’s conclusion is specifically about the timing and responsibility for initiating this particular assistance process.