Video shows blaze at South Africa’s Majuba power station in 2019, not July 2022

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 7, 2022 at 16:56
2 min read
By James OKONG'O, AFP South Africa

A video showing thick black smoke billowing from what looks like a silo has been shared on social media with claims that it captures the moment a fire broke out at the Majuba power station in South Africa in July 2022. The footage has surfaced at a time when the country is battling one of its worst power outages crises. But the claim is misleading: the clip was taken in 2019 when a glitch with a conveyor belt caused a fire at Majuba.

The video was published on Facebook on July 4, 2022, in a post that begins: “majuba power station burning, Eskom sabotaging itself for privatisation (sic)...”

Screenshot showing the misleading post, taken on July 6, 2022

Eskom refers to South Africa's state-run power company, which operates Majuba. The rest of the post criticises the government's handling of the country’s power crisis, which has led to a fresh bout of rolling blackouts affecting millions of households and businesses.

Some Facebook users appeared to believe the claim that the power station had caught fire amid this latest round of enforced outages, with one commenter remarking that the video was “trending” on social media.

The clip runs for 45 seconds and shows fire and a cloud of dark heavy smoke billowing from a tower.

The video was also shared on Twitter and on Facebook here in July 2022.

Load-shedding misery

Majuba power station can produce up to 4,110 megawatts (MW) of electricity, making it a significant part of South Africa’s total generating capacity.

Eskom imposed the toughest electricity rationing – locally known as ‘load-shedding’ – on June 28, 2022, after illegal labour disputes disrupted production at several plants in the country.

South Africans have experienced multiple power cuts every day, lasting between two to four hours on a rotational basis.

The claim suggests the fire was evidence of Eskom sabotaging itself to force through privatisation of the utility.

However, the footage has been shared out of context.

Old video

A reverse image search by AFP Fact Check found that the video has been online since 2019.

It was posted here in December 2019 when a fire reportedly broke out on an incline conveyer belt system at Majuba power station, which is in Mpumalanga province.

Screenshot showing the article with the Majuba power station fire story in 2019

This affected the delivery of coal by rail, although media reports at the time said the power station had 50 days' worth of coal on hand and would unlikely be impacted by the fire.

Eskom said through its official Twitter account on July 4, 2022, that it was aware of the old clip circulating on social media and denied the existence of any new fires at Majuba.

#Eskom is aware of a video in circulation, showing a fire at a power station. Please be advised that this is a four-year old video. Eskom confirms that there is currently no fire eruption at any of our power stations, as alleged.
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) July 4, 2022

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail