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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

台灣事實查核中心Disasters & emergencies

社群媒體流傳集氣文「請幫幫我的爸爸集氣，前幾天宜蘭南方澳跨港大橋發生崩塌斷橋事件，爸爸就是12人受傷的其中一個人...」？

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The post asked people to pray for the writer’s father, claiming he was among those injured when the South-Ao Bridge collapsed in Yilan. It was presented as a submission by Chang Yu-fen and circulated with a photograph of a bald, elderly patient lying in bed with respiratory equipment. The review compared those assertions with the circumstances of the collapse on October 1 and the known injured person surnamed Chang, tanker-truck driver Chang Chien-chang, who was being treated at Luodong Bo’ai Hospital. The hospital said his daughter was not named Chang Yu-fen and that the family had not posted his photograph online.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Crocodile in Patna floodwaters

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a video said to show a crocodile in floodwater during heavy rains in Patna, Bihar. FACTLY’s review examined that specific video and concluded that it showed a crocodile in Vadodara, Gujarat, rather than Patna. The review describes the claimed Patna setting and its finding: “Video of a crocodile seen in floodwater during the heavy rains in Patna(Bihar)” and “The video is that of crocodile seen in the streets of Vadodara (Gujarat).” To investigate the clip’s origin, the review says it uploaded the post’s video to the Invid plugin to obtain keyframes, then reverse-image-searched those frames. One frame led to a longer version of the 20-second clip, uploaded to YouTube on August 4, 2019, by Gujarat News Live19. The review reports that the video’s Gujarati title translated as describing crocodiles in Vadodara floodwaters after heavy rain. This evidence links the circulated footage to the Vadodara setting, not the claimed Patna event. The review also reports a separate visual cross-check: a man in a brown T-shirt and cap visible in the clip appeared in an India TV article about NDRF personnel catching a crocodile in Vadodara, and in other newspaper coverage of crocodile rescues there. It further notes that The Hindu reported wildlife activists rescued 50 crocodiles in Vadodara during that monsoon. These details support the identification of the footage’s location; the excerpt does not provide evidence that the video was filmed in Patna.

YouturnDisasters & emergencies

ஒருமுறை மிஸ்டே பீன் கென்யாவிற்கு விமானத்தில் பயணித்துக் கொண்டிருக்கும் பொழுது திடீரென விமானி சுயநினைவை இழந்து விட்டார். உடனே அவர் விமானியின் இருக்கையில் அமர்ந்து & விமானிக்கு மீண்டும் சுயநினைவு வரும் வரை விமானத்தை இயக்கியுள்ளார். தன் மனைவி இரு குழந்தைகள் மற்றும் பயணிகளின் உயிரைக் காப்பற்றியுள்ளார். அவரால் எதையும் செய்ய முடியும்.

Publisher’s rating: Mix

Pagella PoliticaDisasters & emergencies

«Il 79% del nostro #territorio è a forte #rischio idrogeologico»

Publisher’s rating: Pinocchio andante

The claim came from Environment Minister Sergio Costa, who wrote on Twitter on 18 September 2019 that 79% of Italian territory was at strong hydrogeological risk. The review explains that the term covers several kinds of hazards, including landslides and floods, and compares the claim with figures from ISPRA, Italy’s environmental research institute. Its account says ISPRA classified 16.6% of national territory as having the highest degree of hazard, while identifying 19.9% as affected by landslide risk at all assessed levels and 23.4% as at hydraulic risk. The review further breaks down those figures. For landslides, it reports that the most hazardous levels, P3 and P4, covered about 8.5% of Italy. For hydraulic risk, about half of the affected area—10.9% of national territory—was at the lowest hazard level, P1. These measurements do not support treating the full 79% as territory at strong risk. The review says it found no official document with a figure close to Costa’s and contacted the Environment Ministry for clarification; the excerpt records no response. As a possible explanation, the review suggests Costa may have meant Italy’s hilly and mountainous land, citing 2014 ISTAT figures: hills made up 41.6% of the country and mountains 35.2%, together about 77%. It notes that these kinds of terrain are more prone to hydrogeological instability, but that does not establish that 79% of the country is at strong risk. Its conclusion distinguishes broad susceptibility and lower hazard levels from the specific claim of strong risk.

Fact CrescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: Thiruvarur Methane project blast pictures

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post under review paired four photographs with a message claiming that methane work had begun to cause damage in Thiruvarur. The images showed a pipe in a trench, an injured cow being given water, a burnt coconut grove and a hand with burn injuries. The review says the post was shared by Gopal Krishnan on 6 December 2017 and attracted more than 143,000 shares. It notes that the post did not identify where or when the supposed Thiruvarur incident occurred. To check the photographs, the investigators examined the first image and recognized Chandrababu Naidu, then Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister. They then used a reverse-image search. The review reports finding earlier posts identifying the images with a GAIL gas-pipeline explosion in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh. It also describes a 2016 blog post that included all the pictures from the viral post and identified them as images of that explosion. The review says searches for reports on the East Godavari pipeline explosion identified the event as having occurred on 27 June 2014, killing 15 people in a village along the pipeline. It concludes that the viral post had misrepresented photographs from that Andhra Pradesh event as depicting a methane-pipeline incident in Thiruvarur. The evidence presented addresses the provenance of the circulated images, rather than establishing any Thiruvarur incident matching the post’s claim.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Boat accident video at Papi Kondalu.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a video said to show the tourist boat that sank in the Godavari River near Papi Kondalu. The review distinguishes that accident from the sinking shown in the video: it says the tourist boat sank on 15 September 2019 in the Devipatnam region of East Godavari district, while the circulated footage showed a fishermen’s boat in the Bay of Bengal. [S1: “Based on the article published by ‘Firstpost’, it is understood that a tourist boat sunk in the Godavari river on 15 September, 2019 at Devipatnam region in East Godavari district. But the shared video has no relation to this accident.”] To identify the footage, the review reports taking multiple screenshots from the post and searching them with Google reverse image search. The results connected the video to a fishermen’s boat sinking in the Bay of Bengal. It then reports finding the same clip in an India TV YouTube video, which described fishermen from Bengal going fishing in July 2019 and their boat sinking in bad weather and harsh sea conditions. [S1: “When multiple screen shots of the video in the post were taken and searched using Google reverse image technique, many search results were obtained which showed that the video is related to a fishermen’s boat that sank in the Bay of Bengal. With this information, when searched on Youtube using keywords, a video aired by ‘India TV’ was found which had the same video clip. According to this report, in July 2019 when some fishermen of Bengal went fishing, their boat sank because of unfavorable weather and harsh sea conditions.”] The review’s conclusion is that the footage does not depict the Papi Kondalu tourist-boat accident; it shows a separate sinking involving fishermen. Its account relies on the reported image-search matches and the matching India TV clip to distinguish the video’s subject from the Godavari accident. [S1: “So, the video is not related to the tourist boat that sank in the Godavari river, but is that of fishermen’s boat that sank in the Bay of Bengal.”]

Fact CrescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: Biker wears helmet and fell in a pit

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The review examined a widely shared image presented as showing a motorcyclist falling into a pothole while wearing a helmet, with a caption suggesting that people were being told to wear helmets instead of demanding properly built roads. It reports that the image was posted by Faizal Raiyan on September 4, 2019, and that the image itself gave no information about where or when it was taken. The review notes Hindi lettering at an entrance, which it says indicated a North Indian setting, but did not establish a precise location or date. [S1] To investigate the image, the publisher says it used reverse-image search, finding versions shared in multiple languages in which the person was not wearing a helmet. It also traced a version of the image to a Twitter post associated with a video of a person in an astronaut costume walking on a Bengaluru road. The review says that another user shared the image in that thread, and that the user’s account also posted it with a different caption: that a man had tried to escape through the ground to avoid a ₹10,000 fine. [S1] The review’s examination of the image led it to describe the scene as staged rather than an accidental fall: it says the rider appears to pose instead of trying to climb out, people nearby are smiling, and one person is taking a photograph. It further concludes that the helmet was added graphically, and that the image does not show the rider wearing one. On that basis, the image does not substantiate the claim that a helmet-wearing motorcyclist fell into a pothole and was criticizing poor road construction. [S1]

NewtralDisasters & emergencies

Vídeo de una riada en Urda (Toledo)

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The review examines a video circulating online that was said to show flooding in Urda, Toledo, during the DANA affecting southeastern Spain. It reports that neither the location nor the timing of that claim was correct: searches for frames from the video found it had been published in September 2015, with users locating the footage in Adra, Almería. The review therefore distinguishes the older footage from the more recent flooding with which it was being associated. [S1: “Se está difundiendo a través de las redes sociales un vídeo de inundaciones del que se asegura está grabado en Urda, en la provincia de Toledo, y que responde a vídeos y fotos de la DANA que ha afectado al sureste peninsular. Sin embargo, ni la localización es correcta ni tampoco es actual.”; “A través de la búsqueda en Google de varios de los frames del vídeo hemos encontrado que el vídeo fue publicado en septiembre de 2015 y que las imágenes fueron grabadas en Adra, Almería”] The review gives a further location clue visible in the footage: trucks swept along by the flood bear commercial lettering that identifies their place of origin as Adra-Almería. This visible detail supports the review’s identification of the video’s location, while the 2015 publication history supports its conclusion that the footage was not current. [S1: “en el vídeo puede verse como la riada arrastra a varios camiones, y en dos de ellos se puede leer, en los laterales, los rótulos con los nombres comerciales de las correspondientes empresas y el lugar de procedencia. En ambos casos se puede leer «Adra-Almería».”]