Fact-Check: Old Video From Japan Shared as 'Building Collapse in Turkey'

Fact-Check |This video is old and unrelated to the recent earthquake in Turkey.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video, which shows the front portion of a multi-storey building collapsing, is going viral on social media with a claim that it shows a building in Turkey after the recent earthquakes.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The video has garnered more than 1,30,000 views at the time of writing this story. (More archives to similar claims can be found here and here.)

What is the truth?: Neither the video is recent nor is it from Syria or Turkey. The video dates back to April 2016 and is from Japan's Tama.

How did we find out?: We extracted several keyframes of the video using a Google Chrome extension, InVID, and performed a reverse image search on them.

• This led us to the same video uploaded on Facebook on 18 April 2016.

The caption of the video mentioned that it is from Japan.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

• Taking this forward, we performed a keyword search and came across a report published by the Japanese edition of Huffington Post on 18 April 2016.

• It mentioned that on 17 April 2016, panels surrounding a building near Seiseki-Sakuragaoka Station in Japan's Tama were knocked down due to strong winds.

• The report carried tweets which showed visuals of this building.

The report was published on 18 April 2016.

(Source: Huffington Post/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

• Further, we also found a similar report published on a different website named 'Sora News 24'.

What did we find out while geolocating?: Taking visuals from the viral video as reference, we tried geolocating the place on Google Maps.

• While we did not find the exact same visuals, we found some similarities when we compared the buildings as seen in the viral clip.

A comparison clearly highlights some similarities.

(Source: Google Maps/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

What happened in Turkey?: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit parts of Turkey on Syria on 6 February. This was followed by a swarm of aftershocks and earthquakes.

• This has resulted in the death of more than 7,800 people, as per reports.

• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces.

Conclusion: It is clear that a seven-year-old video from Japan is being shared in the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

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