CCTV of shaking kitchen has circulated online since 2020 -- does not show 2023 Turkey earthquake

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 14, 2023 at 03:49
3 min read
By AFP Bangladesh

A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in posts that misleadingly claim it shows a hotel kitchen shaking in Turkey after the devastating earthquake that hit the country and neighbouring Syria in 2023. In fact, the clip has circulated in reports since October 2020 about another deadly earthquake that rocked the Turkish province of Izmir.

The 56-second clip was shared here on Facebook on February 6, 2023. It has been viewed more than 1,300 times.

The Bengali-language caption translates to English as, "Footage of a hotel in Turkey during the earthquake. An earthquake of 7.8 magnitude hit Turkey and Syria early this morning."

A screenshot of the misleading post taken on February 10, 2023

The video circulated after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked part of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, killing thousands of people and flattening thousands of buildings.

AFP reported that the United Nations has decried the failure to ship desperately needed aid to war-torn regions of Syria, while warning the death toll from the earthquake is set to rise far higher.

Seven days after the quake, the confirmed death toll stood at more than 35,000.

The video was shared here and here in Bengali-language posts on Facebook with similar claims. It was also shared here and here in Spanish-language Twitter posts viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

However, the video predates the Turkey earthquake in February 2023.

Old clip

A reverse image search with keyframes on Google found a shorter, 48-second version of the clip posted in a report from Turkish news outlet Yeni Safak on October 30, 2020 about an earthquake that hit Turkey and neighbouring Greece.

The Turkish-language caption reads: "Security camera footage reveals the severity of Izmir earthquake."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip in the misleading post (left) and the Yeni Safak video (right):

A screenshot comparison of the clip in the misleading post (left) and the Yeni Safak video (right)

A longer, two-minute and 32-second version of the clip was posted by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet on YouTube on November 2, 2020.

The video's title translates to English as, "Another Clip of the Earthquake Disaster on the Security Camera".

Its caption translates as, "The panic experienced by employees in a workplace during a 6.6-magnitude earthquake in Izmir was caught on camera."

In the video's upper right-hand corner, the recording date is displayed as "30-10-2020".

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip in the misleading post (left) and the video published by Hürriyet (right):

A screenshot comparison of the clip in the misleading post (left) and the video published by Hürriyet (right)

AFP reported that a 7.0-magnitude quake hit the Aegean Sea between the Greek island of Samos and the city of Izmir in Turkey on October 30, 2020. The tremor left 114 people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Turkey is in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world. The February 2023 quake was the largest it has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province. A 7.4-magnitude tremor in 1999 killed more than 17,000 people.

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