A viral Facebook post on Thursday, December 16, showing the extent of damage wrought by Typhoon Odette (international name Rai) in Iligan City, Northern Mindanao was a false claim. The photos were taken 10 years ago during the onslaught of Typhoon Sendong (Washi).
The post has so far gathered around 3,000 likes, 1,300 comments and 22,000 shares.
It showed different levels of devastation from typhoon-affected areas, including destroyed vehicles, damaged crops and dead bodies supposedly washed up by landslides.
However, those photos were not taken during Odette. The images were photographed during Sendong that hit similar areas in Northern Mindanao 10 years ago.
The false Odette photos were copied from this Facebook post, uploaded in 2011 by Facebook user Rene Pernia.
The photos for the viral Odette post were lifted directly from Pernia’s post.
Another example:
As 8 a.m. Friday, December 17, only one individual was killed while two others were injured reportedly due to Odette’s fury, data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council showed.
Odette was spotted 130 km Southwest of Cuyo, Palawan or 155 km East Northeast of Puerto Princesa City, Palawan as of 1 p.m. Friday with maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h near the center and gustiness of up to 215 km/h, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said. (Yas D. Ocampo / MindaNews)
As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories.
(This fact-check piece was produced with the support of Internews’ Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator Project.)
