The image is of a highway In Ridgecrest, California taken in July 2019.
A claim on X (formerly Twitter) that a road in Rongai, Kenya was damaged by an earthquake on July 16, 2024, is false.
The post that reads: “A road in Rongai due to Earth tremor tonight” is accompanied by a photo of a damaged road supposedly due to the earthquake.
This comes after an earthquake of magnitude 4,7 occurred in the evening of Tuesday, July 16, 2024, at 8:32 pm local time near Nairobi, Kenya as reported by the German Research Centre for Geoscience.
But is the image an accurate representation of the aftermath?
VERIFICATION
A reverse image search revealed that the photo was first posted in July 2019 after an earthquake in California.
The United States Geological Survey posted the original photo on 6th, July 2019 with a detailed description of where the photo was captured: “Highway 178 SW of Trona. Taken earlier in the morning July 6, 2019, after the M7.1 earthquake which struck eastern California, southwest of Searles Valley, near Ridgecrest, CA.”
The image was also used in other reports about the July 2019 earthquake as seen here and here.
There have been no reports by any verified mainstream or social media of damages due to the July 16, 2024 earthquake in Nairobi and its environs.
VERDICT
The post with a photo showing a road in Rongai damaged by an earthquake is false. The photo was taken on July, 6th 2019 after an earthquake in Ridgecrest, Califonia.
This fact-check was produced by Lake Region Bulletin, under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
