No, this photo shows a waterfall in Iran
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on March 2, 2020 at 06:15
- 2 min read
- By AFP Philippines
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The photo, which shows people swimming and admiring the waterfall, was published on Facebook here on February 17, 2017. The post has been shared over 164,000 times.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The post’s caption reads: “Malaybalay bukidnon falls, Philippines”.
Malaybalay is a city in Bukidnon, a landlocked province in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
The same photo was also shared on Facebook alongside similar claims about the waterfall being in the Philippines here in 2016 and here in 2020.
This claim is false; the waterfall is actually located in western Iran.
Reverse image and keyword searches found the same photo embedded in this June 25, 2015 Persian-language report by the news outlet Parsine, titled: "Bisheh Waterfall in Lorestan".
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading posts (L) and the photo in the Parsine report (R):
Bisheh waterfall is a major attraction in Lorestan, a province in western Iran, according to this report by the Tasnim News Agency.
“Bisheh waterfall's height is about 48 meters with wideness of about 10 meters and joins the Sezar River,” the report reads. “At the top of the waterfall, across the Bisheh railway station, there are several springs which join together and make the waterfall.”
Views of the Bisheh waterfall that are similar to the photo is the misleading post can also be seen throughout this Youtube video.
Multiple similar photos of the waterfall have also been geotagged on Google Maps, for example here and here.
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