The dubious portal "belmouth.com" has published today (March 14) an article titled "Strong Earthquake in Tirana - Here's How Big It Was...".
After verification of the facts conducted by hibrid.info, it has been confirmed that the earthquake did not occur in Tirana, but in fact one struck Montenegro at around 4 am this morning, and that the tremors were also felt in the region, including Tirana.
The news is clarified only in the content of the article, which states "A 5.6 magnitude earthquake has struck northern Montenegro, from where it was felt in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and several other Balkan countries."
Link to the article published by "belmouth.com":
The same article with the same claim was also shared by a page with Albanian language content on Facebook. (see here, here, here and here)
Hibrid.info has researched the online platform of the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC), which reports on earthquakes that hit the European part, which revealed that the epicenter of this 5.4 magnitude earthquake was in Montenegro. (see here)
Analyze:
The dubious portal "belmouth.com" has published an article claiming that a strong earthquake has hit the capital of Albania, Tirana, today (January 14).
After verifying the facts, hibrid.info has confirmed that the epicenter of this earthquake was not in Tirana, but in Montenegro, and that its tremors were also felt in the region, including Tirana.
Based on the working methodology, hibrid.info evaluates this article as "Clickbait".
Reasoning:
“Clickbait” is considered to be informational content whose title is general and does not disclose the location of the event, context and relevance. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the audience with sensational headlines with misleading consequences, which do not accurately clarify the content of the article. “Clickbait” headlines are mainly made to attract readability in the case of media publications and/or to earn from clicks in the case of commercial publications.