By Sujith
Two unrelated videos— one showing of a mine collapse in Inner Mongolia and another from Turkey have been falsely shared on social media as the recent earthquake in Tajikistan.
BOOM found both videos are not related to Tajikistan’s earthquake. One video shows a collapse of a mine in Alxa Zuoqi, Inner Mongolia while other one is related to Turkey’s earthquake.
According to reports, a strong earthquake measured at magnitude 6.8 hit Tajiskistan on February 23. The epicenter was said to be about 65km west of Murghob in Tajikistan near the border with China’s Xinjiang province.
The 33 seconds video shows collapse of a mine area filmed inside from a vehicle.
The video has been captioned as, “#earthquake in #China occupied #Tajikistan #Mining collapsed !!”
The tweet is archived here.
Another 25 seconds video shared by @currentpak786, a Twitter handle run by a group of journalists shows visuals of damaged houses and cars while. The video has been captioned as, “An earthquake of about 7.2 magnitude shook Tajikistan at 8:37am (0037 GMT) on Thursday at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), Chinese state television CCTV reported, citing the China Earthquake Networks Center. #Tajikistan”
Clickhereto watch the video and here for an archived link.
Also Read:Old Videos From Türkiye And Philippines Peddled As Tajikistan Quake
Fact Check
Video 1
BOOM ran a reverse image search on keyframes of the video which led us to a screengrab of the video tweeted by a Twitter handle named, "@chinalaborwatch" on February 23, 2022 with a caption in Chinese reads, “A large-scale collapse of the open-pit coal mine in Alxa Zuoqi, Inner Mongolia has caused 2 deaths, 6 injuries, and 53 people lost contact.”
Further keywords search led us to more reports on it.
South China Morning Post reported on February 22, a screengrab from the video sourced it to Weibo, a China based social media platform. The video was uploaded on Sina Weibo on February 22, we found after accessing it thorough VPN. Sina Corporation owns Sina Weibo.
According to a report published on China Daily on February 22, 2023, around 7 pm, a vast portion of an outdoor opencast mine in Alshaa Left Banner, located in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, collapsed on Wednesday (February 22) afternoon which has buried both workers and vehicles. More than 50 people were trapped under the mine reported after primary investigation.
Read CGTN's report about the mishap here. The Guardian reported different moment of the accident shot from another angle.
Video 2
A reverse search on the video led us to a Turkish Twitter user who posted the video on February 8. The video was also uploaded on Dailymotion and YouTube claiming it aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake.
Geo Locating
A close look on the video shows a board texted, 'BASMANLAR'. By searching on Google Maps we get a shop name called 'Basmanlar kasap ve fırını", which is located in "15 Cumhuriyet Mh. Yolu Antakya, Hatay" on the Street View. The Street View shows matching of other shop names.
According to latest reports published byAP News, over 43,000 people died after the 7.8 magnitude strong earthquake hit Turkey and northern Syria on February 6. A fresh earthquake at 5.5 magnitude also reported on February 25, at central region of the country.
Also Read:Doctored Video Of Muharram Procession In Bihar Shared With False Communal Claim
