2011 video from Japan shared as recent earthquake in Turkey

Old video showing cars on a highway swaying during the 2011 earthquake in Tokyo, Japan.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Turkey and neighbouring Syria early on 6 February, 2023, following this several unverified images, videos, and claims have surfaced on social media. Amidst this a video appears to be shot from the dashboard of a car and shows the cars ahead of it shake violently as tremors hit the area has gone viral. The caption of the video states “Turkey Earthquake. May Allah forgive all our sins.”

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Fact Check-

A Google reverse image search using the key frames from the viral video led us to a coloured version of the video. The stills from this coloured video took us to a website called ‘redrum tokyo’. This website shared the video on 13 March 2017, mentioning that it showed Metropolitan Highway 6.

The page also carried a YouTube video with a title in Japanese, whose translated version mentioned that it showed “Metropolitan Expressway No. 6 at the time of the 3.11 earthquake Part 3.”The video which showed a timestamp reading 2011.03.11, time 2:49 pm and coordinates.

Later we checked the coordinates on Google Maps, which showed Sumida City in Tokyo, Japan.

We were able to compare visuals from the video to what the coordinates led us to by using Google Maps’  Street View feature, and both stills showed similar buildings on the left.

So with this evidences we can understand that the viral video is from Shutoko Metropolitan Expressway in Tokyo city, Japan during the March 2011 earthquake. It is reported to be the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan in 2011 and which triggered a Tsunami back then.

Conclusion–

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False. The viral video was an old video showing cars on a highway swaying during the 2011 earthquake in Tokyo, Japan. It has no relation with the recent earthquake in Turkey.