Claim: A video shows a building in Turkey collapsing after the massive earthquake that hit the country on 6 February 2023.
Fact: The clip is, in fact, from 2016 and shows the facade of a nine-storey building being blown away due to strong winds in Tokyo, Japan.
A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria in the early morning of 6 February 2023, killing 7,900 people and injuring tens of thousands.
Fact or Fiction?
On 6 February 2023, Indian journalist Harish Deshmukh shared a video on Twitter claiming that it shows a building collapsing following the recent Turkey-Syria earthquake.
“Huge building collapse in a aftershock after #earthquake,” the tweet reads.
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be false. A TinEye Reverse Image Search led to a seven-year-old thread on Reddit titled “Façade Detaching from Building”. It features a GIF of the building collapsing.
A user, randomstranger454, pointed out in the comments that the incident took place on 17 April in Tama, western Tokyo and also shared a link to an article by The Japan Times.
The article titled “Gusts in Tama blow panels, scaffolding off nine-floor building,” was published on 17 April 2016. It states that a strong gust of wind blew away scaffolding and metal panels of a nine-storey building in Tama, western Tokyo. The building, which was scheduled for demolition, is near Seisekisakuragaoka Station on the Keio Line.
Digital media platform Mashable also reported on 19 April 2016 about powerful winds tearing down scaffolding on a nine-storey building in Tokyo.
Hence, Soch Fact Check ascertained that the video shows the façade of a building detaching in Tokyo, Japan, in 2016. It was not shot in Turkey.
Virality:
On Facebook, the video was shared here.
The claim can be found here, here, here and here on Twitter.
The video posted by the Twitter user — @DeshmukhHarish9 — gained significant traction, with over 222,500 people viewing the post, more than 130,400 viewing the video, as well as 196 retweets and 523 likes as of writing time.
It was also shared on YouTube.
Conclusion: The video shows the 17 April 2016 collapse of a nine-storey building’s façade in Tokyo, Japan.
Background image in cover photo: Raimond Klavins