By Sista Mukherjee
An old video showing a man trying to rescue puppies trapped under a rubble in India has surfaced on social media with captions linking it to the devastating Türkiye and Syria earthquake.
BOOM found the video is from 2019 and from a rescue mission after a building collapsed due to heavy rains.
Türkiye and Syria were hit by a deadly earthquake on February 6, 2023, which has claimed more than 33000 lives so far. The death toll is expected to climb further; a week after the disaster, rescuers are continuing with their endeavours to pull out the trapped. On February 13, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey.
The video of the man rescuing the puppies went viral on Twitter with a caption, "Be kind to every kind, not just mankind. #TurkeySyriaEarthquake.". The video was shared on Twitter with several Turkey-Syria Earthquake related hashtags.
Click here to see the tweet.
The video was also shared on Facebook with the same caption, "The Dog's child was buried under the ruins after the earthquake. #TurkeySyriaEarthquake #turkey".
Fact Check
BOOM broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search on a few of them, and found the same video was uploaded on YouTube by a user, named Animal Aid Unlimited, India, on August 28, 2019.
The video is titled as, "Mother dog helps rescuers dig for her buried puppies"
The video description reads, "This frantic mother dog's love of her puppies has her digging with paws, biting at stones and tearing at the rubble to free her buried babies who are trapped after a house collapsed in the rain. When Animal Aid's rescuers arrived, they feared the puppies might not be alive, but their Mama must have been able to hear them or sense that they were still alive and she was determined to tell us so. Every minute was precious and she seemed to realize that they could suffocate at any moment. You'll never forget this incredible portrait of a blissful rescue and a mother's unstoppable love."
We also found the same video uploaded on the charitable organisation's Facebook page with the same description.
This charitable organisations Facebook bio reads, “Animal Aid Unlimited is a rescue-centre, hospital and sanctuary for ownerless street animals in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India.”
Below is a screen comparison between frames of the viral video and video from Animal Aid Unlimited’s YouTube channel.
BOOM has reached out to the organisation to find out where the video was shot. The story will be updated if we get a reply.
