Old video showing river erosion in China linked to recent Turkey earthquake

A Facebook video shows aerial footage of deep fissures or cracks in the Earth. It is being linked to the recent Turkey earthquake.

The viral post claims, “The day the Earth moved- This’s the fracture of earth’s crust after earthquake. Two cracks in the Earth’s crust opened in the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday, Feb. 6 (sic).”

The video is also being shared on Instagram and Twitter with the claim that it is linked to the turkey earthquake

FACT CHECK

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. While it is true that severe earthquakes in Turkey this month did rupture the Earth’s surface but this video shows river erosion in China’s Loess Plateau. It is not related to earthquakes.

On performing a simple reverse image search, we found the same footage of the crack formations on YouTube and Instagram that were uploaded more than a year prior to the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. (Click here and here to view the YouTube videos.)

Both videos were uploaded on YouTube in November 2022. The titles of the videos, which are written in Chinese, state that the footage was taken in Pinglu county in China.

When we searched for Pinglu county on Google Earth, it was clear that the video was from China. The crack in the earth’s crust could be easily spotted.

It is true that the recent earthquakes caused some ground fissures and cracks. By performing a keyword search, we found the real images of the recent earthquake fissures that look nowhere close to the viral video.

Lastly, we found a video showing cracks appearing in the ground in Antakya, Turkey due to the earthquake.