Does a photo show a person falling from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001? No, that's not true: This real photo dates from a May 9, 2013, fire in the nine-story Lahore Development Authority (LDA) building in Pakistan. Local media reported 25 people were killed in the fire, five of them jumping or falling from the building.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the account @smile_jesus_loves_u on TikTok on Sept. 11, 2026. It read:
we remember 911
Heart Breaking
#911 #heartbreaking #remember #nyc
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @smile_jesus_loves_u on TikTok.)
This TikTok post is not a video, but is a still image paired with a music track.
The uncropped photo (pictured below) appeared in a May 9, 2013, Fox News article titled 5 people plunge to their deaths trying to escape burning building in Pakistan (archived here).
(Image source: Fox News.)
Early reporting on the incident contained uncertain numbers regarding fatalities as well as conflicting reports on the height of the high-rise office building. The photo caption in the Fox News article said the building is 13 stories, but other reports such as a May 9, 2013, article in The Express Tribune (archived here) say the building is 9 stories. The Fox News photo caption read:
A man jumps from a building that caught on fire in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, May 9, 2013. The 13-storey government building caught fire and quickly intensified spreading to three floors of the tall building. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) (The Associated Press)
Later reports from May 14, 2013, in The Express Tribune (archived here) and an undated summary (archived here) from the Lahore Division, Government of the Punjab (quoted below) contain a final death toll of 25.
On May 9, 2013, five days after International Firefighters' Day, the LDA Plaza building in central Lahore caught fire, killing 25 people. The fire started on the seventh floor, and media coverage revealed people jumping out of the building to their death. The fire highlighted the irrelevance of fire safety regulations, considering the fact that the very agency whose responsibility it is to ensure compliance with fire safety regulation; the 35-year-old building's staircases were poorly designed and hampered rescue efforts. The fire was finally extinguished after 20 hours.
