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Viral Image That Symbolised Nepal Earthquake Was Actually Clicked In Vietnam

Viral Image That Symbolised Nepal Earthquake Was Actually Clicked In Vietnam
Na-Son Nguyen/Twitter

Most social media users must have seen the moving image of two young children desperately hugging each other in fear, being shared all over Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #NepalEarthquake. Only, it turns out that the photo was taken nearly a decade ago in northern Vietnam.

Na-Son Nguyen, a Vietnam-based freelance photographer came forward on Twitter and said that the image was taken in 2007 Vietnam.

This is my photo about two Vietnamese Hmong ethnic children taken in 2007 in Ha Giang province, it's not about Nepal pic.twitter.com/yq04TsH6CF

— Na-Son Nguyen (@nasonnguyen) May 2, 2015

"I was passing through a village in Ha Giang province but was stopped by the scene of two Hmong children playing in front of their house while their parents were away working in the field. The little girl, probably two years old, cried in the presence of a stranger so the boy, who was maybe three years old or so, hugged his sister to comfort her. It was both moving and cute, so I quickly made a shot," Nguyen told the BBC.

Nguyen, who published the photo on his private blog, was surprised when he saw that the picture had been widely circulated on social media with different stories attached to it, reported The Independent.

"This is perhaps my most shared photo but unfortunately in the wrong context," Nguyen told the BBC.

In 2011, a report in the Business Insider had explained that a satellite image of India that was being circulated on Diwali on social media, had nothing to do with Diwali. In fact, the image is actually an overlay of different photos taken by NASA satellites to highlight India's increasing population via night illumination.

Similarly, soon after Osama Bin Laden's death, a gruesome image, allegedly of his dead body, was being shared wildly on social media, reported IBNLive.com. In fact, the image was based on a Reuters photograph of bin Laden, taken in 1998.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.