An old image of a gold mine in Indonesia was shared on social media as the image of the Qara-Zaghn gold mine of Afghanistan. It was made viral on February.11.2021 by social media users who claimed that the gold mine is in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan.
Claim:
On February.11.2021, the Afghan social media users published a photo of a gold mine claiming that the image is of the Qara-Zaghn gold mine in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan.
Fact Check:
We searched the image using Google reverse image search and found that the image belongs to a gold mine in India. On February.21/22.2020, Indian news agencies had reported about a gold mine in Sonbhadra in Uttar Pradesh province in India. The claims, which reported the image from a gold mine in Afghanistan is to be false.
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However, when we searched further we found that the image is not from a gold mine in India but from Indonesia. We used Tineye reverse image search and found a stock website that hosted this image. This image is available in Adobe Stock Photos credited to Reuters. The details of the photo reveal that the image is from Pidie goldmine in Indonesia.
As per the licensing details available on the website, the photograph was taken on 3rd November 2009 by Tarmizy Harva for Reuters at a goldmine in Pidie district in the Aceh province of Indonesia. This image has been used a representative image by many a websites over the years. Some of the websites, like Business Insider (seen in the screenshot below), have mentioned the details and given credits for the image.
To read the article- Business Insider
In case of various Indian media houses who reported the story of discovery of gold in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra did not mention the details nor gave a disclaimer that the image is not from India but a representative image. The same image was shared as Qara-Zaghn gold mine in Baghlan. Here is an old image available on Getty images of workers working in Qara-Zaghn goldmine. This image was taken in the year 2013.
Conclusion: An old image from a gold mine in the Pidie district of Aceh Province in Indonesa is being shared as image of Qara-Zaghn gold mine in Afghanistan.
Title:Old image of an Indonesian Goldmine Shared as an Afghan Goldmine on Social Media.
Fact Check By: Fact Crescendo TeamResult: False
