Years-old building collapse video from Turkey falsely linked to 2026 Venezuela quakes

Published on June 26, 2026 at 09:49
2 min read
By Pasika KHERNAMNUOY, AFP Thailand

An old video of a block of flats crumpling to the ground after an earthquake was filmed in Turkey, contrary to posts claiming it shows a building collapsing after Venezuela's major back-to-back tremors in June 2026. The clip, which AFP geolocated to Sanliurfa province in southeast Turkey, was widely distributed by international news agencies in February 2023.

"A building collapsed right before our eyes -- just like in an apocalypse movie," says the Thai-language caption of an X video published on June 25, 2026, accompanied by the hashtags "earthquake" and "Venezuela".

The eight-second clip shows a block of flats collapsing as people flee the area.

Screenshot of the false post captured on June 25, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

The same clip was also shared in similar TikTok, Facebook, Threads and X posts.

It spread after two earthquakes measuring magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 struck northern Venezuela less than a minute apart on June 24, killing at least 235 people and injuring around 4,300 (archived link).

Search and rescue efforts were underway to find survivors trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings, as offers of support poured in from around the world (archived link). Switzerland, Spain, France, Portugal and Mexico were among the countries sending specialist rescue teams to Venezuela.

But the circulating clip, which predates the Venezuela earthquake by more than three years, was in fact filmed in Turkey.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage published by the Reuters news agency on its YouTube and X accounts on February 6, 2023 (archived here and here).

"Video shows a building collapse after a major earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck central Turkey and northwest Syria," reads the caption of the video, which the news agency credited to Turkish broadcaster Urfa TV.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and the footage published by Reuters in February 2023

The same clip was also used in reports by BBC News, CNN and CBS about the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border in the early hours of February 6, 2023 (archived here, here and here).

AFP reported that almost 60,000 people had been killed -- 53,000 in Turkey and 6,000 in Syria (archived link).

Officials said more than 12,000 buildings in Turkey -- some constructed only six months before the quake -- were either destroyed or seriously damaged, exposing poor construction standards (archived link).

The circulating footage also matches Google Street View imagery of a building in the Haliliye district of Sanliurfa province captured before the earthquake, in October 2022 (archived link).

Comparison of the building in the falsely shared video (L) and in Google Street View imagery from before the 2023 quake, with similarities highlighted by AFP

AFP has previously debunked other false claims that misrepresented footage from the Turkey earthquake in 2023.

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