Authors
An Electronics & Communication engineer by training, Arjun switched to journalism to follow his passion. After completing a diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the India Today Media Institute, he has been debunking mis/disinformation for over three years. His areas of interest are politics and social media. Before joining Newschecker, he was working with the India Today Fact Check team.
The deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have left behind a trail of destruction, killing at least 5000 people and causing massive infrastructure damage. In this backdrop, one such video showing a multi-story building crumbling into a pile of debris in a matter of a few seconds is going viral on social media, with users linking it to the Turkey earthquake.
The video has been shared on various social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, including users with verified handles.
Archive of the post can be seen here.
Archive of the post can be seen here.
Fact Check/Verification
We first split the video into several keyframes using the In-Vid tool, following which, we conducted a reverse image search of the keyframes of the viral video. We were led to a TikTok post from January 16 which carried the viral video with a caption in Arabic informing that the video was from old Mecca road, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
With the help of some keywords in Arabic, we found the same video on YouTube also, uploaded on January 19. The description here indicated that the location of the building is old Mecca road, Kilo 3, Jeddah.
Newschecker then tried to search for the location on Google Maps. We found the street view of a building which had similarities to the one seen in the viral video. On analysing the image, we noticed a bank named “Banque Saudi Fransi” on the ground floor of the building.
On looking up the name of the bank on Google, we found more images of the same building and the bank. Comparing these photos with the viral video, we were able to ascertain that they both showed the same building. The satellite view of the building can be seen here.
We further found reports and videos that revealed that Saudi Arabia has been razing buildings in Jeddah to redevelop old areas of the city under a multi-billion-dollar project that was announced last year.
While some social media users pointed out in the comment section that it appeared to be a controlled demolition, we couldn’t independently verify that the collapse of this particular building was part of planned razing by Saudi authorities.
However, based on our findings, it is clear that the video is from Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, and not from Turkey.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the video of a building collapsing in Saudi Arabia is being falsely linked to the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The video has been available on the internet since last month.
Result: False
Our Sources
TikTok and YouTube videos, uploaded in January 2023
Google Maps
| Claim: Video Of Building Collapse In Turkey Claimed By: Social Media Users Fact Check: False |
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Authors
An Electronics & Communication engineer by training, Arjun switched to journalism to follow his passion. After completing a diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the India Today Media Institute, he has been debunking mis/disinformation for over three years. His areas of interest are politics and social media. Before joining Newschecker, he was working with the India Today Fact Check team.
