Fact check: Video that appears to show cracks in the Earth from China, not Turkey or Syria

Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY
·2 min read
24

The claim: Video shows cracks in the ground that formed after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria

A Facebook video shows aerial footage of what appears to be large fissures or cracks in the Earth.

"The day the Earth moved- This's the fracture of earth's crust after earthquake," reads the video's caption in the Feb. 20 post (direct link, archive link). "Two cracks in the Earth's crust opened in the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday, Feb. 6."

The video was viewed more than 3,000 times in three days.

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Our rating: False

This footage doesn't show a scene iTurkey. Similar footage of the formations was uploaded to YouTube and Instagram more than a year prior to the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. 

Video uploaded to YouTube prior to earthquakes in Turkey and Syria

Powerful earthquakes recently struck Turkey and Syria killing tens of thousands of people. However, the Facebook video is not related to this disaster.

Footage showing the formations in the video was posted to Instagram in 2021, more than a year before the recent earthquakes occurred.

Syrians wait to cross into Syria from Turkey at the Cilvegozu border gate, near the town of Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. The death toll in Turkey and Syria rose to eight in a new and powerful earthquake that struck two weeks after a devastating temblor killed nearly 45,000 people, authorities and media said Tuesday.
Syrians wait to cross into Syria from Turkey at the Cilvegozu border gate, near the town of Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. The death toll in Turkey and Syria rose to eight in a new and powerful earthquake that struck two weeks after a devastating temblor killed nearly 45,000 people, authorities and media said Tuesday.

Two videos showing similar footage were also uploaded to YouTube in November 2022. The titles of the videos, which are written in Chinese, say that the footage was taken in Pinglu County, in China.

Associated Press also reported that the footage was captured in China.

Fact check: Video shows 2018 tsunami in Indonesia, not from recent earthquakes in Turkey

The recent earthquakes did cause ground fissures, according to Reuters, but images of the damage reviewed by USA TODAY did not look anything like the formations in the Facebook video.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook users who shared the post for comment.

The video was also debunked by the Associated Press.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Crack formation video predates Turkey earthquake