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| - Fact Check: These cats really sensed an earthquake and panicked - but in Japan, not Turkey
The videos are old and not related to the recent quakes in Turkey and Syria.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a 2018 video from Japan’s Kansai region. According to reports from the time, the felines reacted to a quake that shook the region on June 18, 2020.
It is often said that animals can sense natural disasters before they actually strike. Stories of cats and dogs and birds sensing storms and quakes are aplenty in the wake of natural disasters. And following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, videos allegedly showing this phenomenon in action have been making the rounds on social media.
One clip shows a clowder of cats at a pet store jolting from sleep and running across the room, as if panicked. Moments before the room shook, they could be seen finding themselves a safer spot. Another video that went viral shows a family with children and dogs trying to hide under a table as their house trembles. The dogs inside the house also start jumping around in horror.
AFWA’s investigation found that both videos are old and not related to the recent quakes in Turkey.
AFWA Probe
Using reverse image search, we found the video of the cats uploaded to a Japanese YouTube channel on June 18, 2018. This channel named “Cat Cafe Catchy ” also had multiple other videos from the same store.
Multiple media organisations also carried the same video in 2018. As per these reports, the video was from the pet cafe “CATchy” in Osaka, Japan, and was captured by the surveillance camera in the store. It reportedly showed the cats reacting to an earthquake that shook the region on June 18, 2018.
On the morning of June 18, 2018, an earthquake measuring magnitude 6.1 struck in the Japanese coastal city of Osaka and nearby areas. Three people died and more than 200 were injured in the incident.
We also searched for the cafe on Google Maps and found that it is located in Wakayama, a city in Japan’s Kansai region. The images of the cafe uploaded on Google Maps matched the interior of the place seen in the viral video.
With the help of a reverse search, we found that the second video that featured the dogs has been on the internet since as early as 2020. ABC World News on October 31, 2020, shared the same video on its Facebook page.
As per its description, the footage was from an earthquake that struck Turkey’s Izmir in 2020. The description of the video read, “Home surveillance footage from Izmir, Turkey, shows a family and their dogs startled by a powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea between the Greek isle Samos and the Turkish coast that reduced buildings to rubble and left at least 19 people dead. ”
Multiple other media organisations also carried the video in 2020. As per these reports as well, the video was from the 2020 earthquake in Turkey.
It is hence clear that both videos in question are old and not related to the recent quakes in Turkey and Syria.
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