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FACT CHECK: No, these are not ‘then and now’ photos of a Philippine landfill

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

Photos shared hundreds of times on Facebook in February 2019 claim to show “then and now” photographs of Smokey Mountain, a dumpsite in the Philippine capital. The posts are inaccurate: the “then” image is actually of a dumpsite in Cambodia and the “now” photo was posted online in 2010.The images, which were posted on Facebook <a href="http://archive.is/DkUS5">here </a>and <a href="https://archive.fo/m47ML">here </a>on February 11, 2019 and shared nearly 2,000 times, claim to show Smokey Mountain in the district of Tondo in Manila both when it was a dumpsite and after a cleanup.Here is a screenshot of the post:<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/news/02/20/fb-post.jpg"/><figcaption>Screenshot of Facebook post</figcaption></figure></div>A reverse image search of the top photograph used in the post led to this <a href="https://nigeldickinson.photoshelter.com/image/I0000JYuB_hPSS1w">website</a>, which shows the work of photographer Nigel Dickinson.The caption of the original photo says the image shows the <a href="http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2008-10-30-voa14/401301.html">Steung Meanchey dump </a>in Cambodia, which is also nicknamed Smokey Mountain.Here is a screenshot of the photo on Dickinson’s website:<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/news/02/20/cambodia.jpg"/><figcaption>Screenshot of image</figcaption></figure></div>The photo on Dickinson’s site and the one on the misleading post both contain these key details: two people sitting in the photo’s foreground with a white bag on the left and a cluster of orange and blue trash to the right.A reverse search traced the image that appears at the bottom of the misleading post to an <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/36484111@N00/5213710954">account </a>on photo-sharing platform Flickr.Here is a screengrab of the image on Flickr:<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2019/news/02/20/tondo.jpg"/><figcaption>Screenshot of image</figcaption></figure></div>According to details posted on Flickr, the photo was taken on November 27, 2010.Smokey Mountain was a famous landmark in Manila. Thousands of people lived on the dumpsite and earned a living by picking up trash for recycling. It was closed in the 1990s and people who lived on the site moved elsewhere. <a href="https://adb.exposure.co/life-after-smokey-mountain">Here </a>is a report from the Asian Development Bank on the closure and life afterwards for the people who lived there.

The posts are inaccurate: the “then” image is actually of a dumpsite in Cambodia and the “now” photo was posted online in 2010.

The posts are inaccurate: the “then” image is actually of a dumpsite in Cambodia and the “now” photo was posted online in 2010.