FACT CHECK: Old video from China viral as crack in earth’s crust by earthquake in Turkey

CLAIM

An aerial footage that shows deep fissures and massive cracks in the Earth’s surface is being linked with the recent earthquakes in Turkey. Using the eight-second-long video it is being claimed that a 300-km-long fracture in the Earth's crust was developed as a result of the strong earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.


“Turkey Syria Earthquake caused 300 km Long Crack in Earth’s Crust #turkeyearthquake2023 #earthquake#TurkeySyriaEarthquake2023,” reads the caption of the now-viral post shared by Twitter user Ankita Jain.

Several other Twitter users posted the same footage with similar claims.



TRUTH
The video is old aerial footage from China's Shanxi province and is not related to the recent earthquakes in Turkey.

VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGYUsing InVID Google Chrome extension, we broke the video into several keyframes and then ran reverse-image search on them via different search engines.

The results led us to a video posted on Instagram on December 6, 2021. Shared by DJ Paschur, the video showed similar visuals as that seen in the viral video above.


Further to this, we also found several videos uploaded on YouTube in the month of November, 2022 showing the same footage.


These videos had titles and descriptions in Chinese. The translated caption showed that these visuals were from China’s Pinglu County.


"The Great Ravine in Pinglu County" A chasm about 10 kilometers long is drawn on the entire plain. What kind of force divides it into two parts?” read one of the translated video headlines.

Another video’s translated description reads, “It's incredible! Have you ever seen hundreds of millions of years of crustal changes divide the plain into two? In Pinglu County, Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, there is such a gully that separates the houses on both sides. Looking down from the sky, the gully stretches continuously and can't be seen at a glance.”

This confirms that the footage is old and unrelated to the Turkey earthquake.

Furthermore, a search on Google Earth for Pinglu county reveals that the video is indeed from China as there are deep fissures in the earth’s surface.

Although there are several credible news reports that claim that Turkey earthquake drone footage shows fissure slicing through land. But certainly, this viral video doesn't show that.

VERDICT
Times Fact Check has found that an old video from China showing massive cracks in earth’s crust is being falsely linked to the recent Turkey earthquake.