A photo from Peru showing giant cracks and fissures in the ground is being shared as an aerial shot of the situation in Joshimath, Uttarakhand where cracks have started appearing in homes and roads amid land subsidence.
Joshimath in Uttarakhand, a gateway to several trekking sites and relgious spots like Badrinath and Hemkunth Sahib, was declared a disaster-prone zone earlier this year. Cracks have started to appear on roads and inside homes in Joshimath, with some establishments even reporting tilting. The government has currently banned all construction activities in the region and rescue operations to move those away from the affected locations are underway.
BOOM has been reporting from the ground and speaking to residents of Joshimath who are anxious about what the future holds.
Amid the situation in Joshimath, an unrelated image from Peru is being shared.
The viral photo is being shared with text on the picture that reads, "600 familities of Uttarakhand's sinking Joshimath to be shifted to safer locations, plea in SC to declare it 'national disaster'. Construction works around hills halted, PMO takes charge"
While the photo is being shared widely on Facebook, it was made and first posted by The Tatva, a right leaning Facebook page.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that while there are cracks reported in areas of Joshimath, the viral photo is from Peru of a landslide in the Cusco region of the country in 2018.
We first ran a reverse image search on the picture and found a April 2019 piece published by Revolve Media, a climate change reporting news site, which carried the same photo and credited it to the Ministry of Defense, Peru.We also found the same picture used in a blogpost by Dave Petley, the vice-chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom on his blog where he analyses landslide events that occur worldwide.Petley used the picture and credited as a screengrab from a video about a major landslide that occurred in Llusco region in Cusco, Peru. The video was uploaded on March 10, 2018 by a production company called 'Fameco' and captioned as Lutto-Llusco Geological leak.The video shows the same visuals as in the viral photo and also has a close up shots of the fissures and the impacted area.
A March 4, 2018 report in Xinhua, about the landslide said, "intense rains had a devastating effect over the last week in the area, with a landslide destroying over 100 houses, a school and a clinic." It further added, "The Peruvian government on Saturday declared a state of emergency for the village of Llusco in the southern department of Cusco, after a landslide devastated homes, fields and highways.We then ran a search for the photo on the official verified Twitter account of the Peru Ministry and found that they had tweeted the same picture on March 16, 2018.The photo tweeted as a part of set of three was posted with a caption in Spanish that roughly translates to, "Minister of Defense, Jorge Kisic, together with the regional governor of Cusco, @EdwinLiconaGRC, carries out an inspection overflight in the area affected by landslides in the district of Llusco, #Cusco."
