Clip from 2023 Turkey quake falsely shared as recent

Published on April 30, 2025 at 10:01
3 min read
By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Thailand

A powerful earthquake shook Turkey's biggest city Istanbul on April 23, 2025 but caused no major damage, authorities said. Circulating footage of a collapsing building is old and was filmed in southeastern Sanliurfa city during a deadly tremor in February 2023.

"Earthquake in Istanbul, Turkey, 23/04/2025 with 6.2 magnitude, 6 km depth at 16:49," reads a Thai-language text overlaid to the video showing people running away from a crumbling building.

It was posted April 23 on a YouTube channel with more than 66,000 subscribers, with a caption that also portrays the clip as recent.

Screenshot of the false post, taken April 29, 2025

Similar posts surfaced on Facebook and TikTok after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake rattled Istanbul (archived link).

The quake was followed by more than 120 aftershocks, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said, while there were no reports of major damage or serious injury.

Hundreds of people rushed onto the streets, while many were checking their mobiles for information or making calls. Others took to parks or open space in the city for safety, according to AFP correspondents.

An abandoned three-storey building in Fatih district collapsed without causing any injuries, Istanbul governor Davut Gul said.

But the circulating clip is from an earlier quake in a different Turkish city.

A reverse image search using keyframes found it was posted on X on February 6, 2023 with a caption saying it was filmed in southeastern Sanliurfa city near the border with Syria (archived link).

A 7.8-magnitude quake that day killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and nearly 6,000 in Syria (archived here and here).

It was the strongest quake in Turkey since 1939, exposing the nation's poor construction standards that even newly completed buildings could not withstand the tremors (archived link).

Screenshot comparison between the falsely shared video (L) and X post in February 2023

Reports from Turkish media outlets Ensonhaber and Ihlas Haber Ajansi about the February 2023 earthquake also featured visuals of the collapsing building (archived here and here).

Using details from the news reports, AFP was able to geolocate the video to a street in Ataturk Boulevard in Sanliurfa (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the video (L) and its location visible on Google Maps street view

Earthquakes and other disasters frequently spark misinformation, many of them AFP has debunked here, here and here.

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