A viral photograph showing structural damage to a house was falsely claimed to depict the aftermath of a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Ayacucho, Peru.
The image actually shows a residential property located in Pereira, Colombia, which suffered structural damage during a magnitude 7.4 earthquake on the morning of August 10, 2026.
In the days following the seismic event in Peru, social media users widely circulated the photograph across digital platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. One of the highest-reaching posts appeared on Facebook, generating more than 7,200 reactions, 442 comments, and 597 shares.
Online accounts shared the image as visual evidence of destruction caused by the earthquake that struck Ayacucho on August 20, 2026. The department of Ayacucho is located in the south-central Andes of Peru, a region prone to seismic activity due to its location along the South American tectonic plate.
Multiple variants of the image were posted across networks owned by Meta Platforms, spreading false context regarding the impact of the Peruvian tremor.
Reverse image search investigation
A verification check conducted using Google Lens, a visual recognition technology developed by Google to identify images across the web, established the true origin of the photograph. Although initial queries did not locate the exact viral image file, the search identified matching photographs of the same house taken from different angles.
Those matching photographs had been published online by major news organisations, including Colombian daily newspapers El Tiempo and El País, alongside international picture services EFE and Getty Images. Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, based in Bogota, published a photograph of the damaged residence from another perspective on August 11, 2026.
Spanish international news agency EFE, one of the primary multimedia news providers in the Spanish-speaking world, published photos of the damaged property on August 11 and August 12, 2026.
Publication timeline verification
Cali-based Colombian newspaper El País released additional imagery of the affected residence on August 13, 2026.
Global visual content supplier Getty Images distributed further photographs of the building on August 19, 2026, credited to the Anadolu agency.
Because all of these photographs were documented and published between August 11 and August 19, 2026, the visual record established that the images existed before the August 20 earthquake occurred in Ayacucho, Peru.
Impact of the earthquake in Colombia
The original event depicted in the photograph occurred in Pereira, the capital city of Colombia's Risaralda department located in the western Andean region. Reports from Colombian media and international news agencies indicated that the magnitude 7.4 earthquake on August 10 caused structural damage to several buildings across the municipality.
According to news reports cited in the verification analysis, the damage caused by the earthquake in Colombia forced some residents to move temporarily to local public parks, sports fields, and community centers.
Fact-checking analysis confirmed that the viral image does not show structural damage caused by the earthquake in Ayacucho, Peru, but rather records building damage from the earlier earthquake in Pereira, Colombia.
