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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

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Visuals of a nuclear plant explosion in Turkey, following the recent earthquake on 06 February 2023

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a video circulating after the 6 February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, said to show a nuclear plant exploding because of the earthquake. The review describes the footage as showing “an explosion of a building” and says that, at the time of its investigation, there were no reports of a nuclear-plant explosion in Turkey caused by the earthquake. To investigate the footage, the reviewers used reverse image searches of screenshots from the viral video. They report that this search found news reports from 2020 showing the same visuals, which they identify as an explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon. The review attributes that blast to the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a port warehouse. The review also says officials confirmed that Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, then under construction, had not been damaged by the earthquake. Its conclusion about this particular video is that old Beirut-explosion footage was being presented as a nuclear-plant explosion in Turkey. The article’s later update distinguishes a different blast video: it identifies those visuals as explosions in Tianjin, China, in 2015, not as the Beirut footage discussed in the original claim.

日本ファクトチェックセンターDisasters & emergencies

トルコの地震で原発事故が起きた

Publisher’s rating: 誤り

The video circulated as showing a nuclear accident caused by the Turkey earthquake was footage of the 2020 explosion at Beirut’s port in Lebanon. The review says the explosion was caused by ammonium nitrate stored at the port, not by a nuclear power plant.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Visuals showing strange behaviour of birds before the earthquake in Turkey on 06 February 2023

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post linked a video of birds flying erratically to the 6 February 2023 earthquake in Turkey, presenting it as footage of strange behaviour observed before the quake. FACTLY reports that the circulating video was not from Turkey and did not depict events before that earthquake. Instead, it showed birds over a freeway in Houston, Texas; the review says the incident occurred in 2017. The review describes a reverse image search of screenshots from the viral video. That search led to a 2017 Daily Mail report identifying the scene as birds hovering erratically above a Houston freeway. FACTLY also traced the video to an Instagram post shared on 20 January 2017 and geotagged to Houston. The Instagram description indicated that the footage was licensed by Jukin Media. As further corroboration, the review says the Associated Press had previously clarified that the same video was from Houston when it was shared in connection with the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Taken together, the earlier reporting, Houston geotag and prior identification support the conclusion that the video was old footage misattributed to the Turkey earthquake.