A viral picture claiming to show a damaged road after a massive earthquake near the Tajikistan-China border is doing the rounds on social media. Many users have shared this image showing the devastating effects of the disaster in the country.
A Facebook user posted the viral post with a caption: তাজিকিস্তান ও চীন সীমান্তে ৭.৩ মাত্রার ভূমিকম্প আঘাত হেনেছে। যেসব দেশে অনূভুত হয়েছে: তাজিকিস্তান, চীন,পাকিস্তান, উজবেকিস্তান, আফগানিস্তান এবং কিরগিজস্তান। বহু ক্ষয়ক্ষতির আশঙ্কা। (English translation: Tajikistan and China border 7. 3 earthquake strikes.
Countries that have been experienced: Tajikistan, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Fear of many damage.)
You can check the post here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral post, and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the viral image, we traced an article on an Indonesian blog page — Rovylicious, dated November 6, 2021, with a title: Indonesia Alami Bencana Beruntun di Awal Tahun 2021, Musibah atau Azab? (English translation: Indonesia Experiencing Serial Disasters at the Beginning of 2021, Disaster or Punishment?) talks about a series of disasters in Indonesia since 2021.
One of the images in the blog matches exactly with the viral image, but doesn’t give the exact location or time period of the same. Given that the blog was published in November 2021, it is clear that the viral picture predates the Tajikistan earthquake in February 2023.
Also, an article in Gelora — an independent Indonesian online news platform, dated September 29, 2018, with a title: TNI AU Gunakan Foto Udara untuk Petakan Bantuan di Palu dan Donggala (English: The Indonesian Air Force Uses Aerial Photographs to Map Assistance in Palu and Donggala), informs about the efforts put in by the Indonesian air force to aid the victims of the earthquake in Palu and Donggala, Central Sulawesi, in September 2018. And the viral image is an aerial picture taken by the Indonesian Air Force to map assistance in the disaster-struck area.
Another news article in The Guardian, September 2018, describes that along with an earthquake the island was also hit by a tsunami and aftershocks that caused widespread destruction. The image in the article is a side-angle view of the viral picture.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral picture claiming to show a damaged road after an earthquake near the Tajikistan-China border is fake.
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