Fact Check: Photo showing damaged building makes a completely false claim about deaths and occurrence of earthquake

Last week, a major earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale jolted Jammu and Kashmir. Soon after, social media users shared a photo of a damaged building claiming that it was a structure destroyed in the Kashmir earthquake.

The claim further states that three people were killed as a result of the collapse. It reads, “3 people killed in Karnah Kupwara, Indian occupied Jammu kashmir.”

FACT CHECK:

We ran a reverse image search and found the same photo on Getty Images. The picture shows the view of a destroyed building after earthquakes jolted Turkey's provinces, on February 6, 2023 in Kahramanmaras.

Getty Images credited the photo to Firat Ozdemir and Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency. Taking a cue from this, we searched online and found a report published on February 6 on Anadolu Agency's website. It carried the viral photo and mentioned that Kahramanmaras was hit by earthquakes of 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude.

Clearly, the viral picture is not from an earthquake in Jammu Kashmir. The picture shows the effects of an earthquake that occurred last month in Turkey.

Moreover, the claim of three people being killed in Kashmir as a result of the collapse due to the recent earthquake is false. Kupwara police called the claim "fake." There are no reports of any deaths related to the recent earthquake.

Therefore, the whole claim is false.