Closed Kazakhstan test site misrepresented as 'Pakistan nuclear facility'
- Published on June 12, 2025 at 10:55
- 4 min read
- By Rimal FARRUKH, AFP Pakistan
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Unrelated photos of people wearing protective gear emerging from hillside tunnels have been shared in posts that falsely claim they show US officials inspecting Pakistan's Kirana Hills -- a vast rocky mountain range that Indian media has alleged contains Islamabad's nuclear arsenal. The photos in fact show visitors to the now-closed Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Kazakhstan.
"Members of the US Department of Energy were seen near Pakistan's Kirana Hills which were hit by India on May 9," reads the caption of images shared in an X post from May 13, 2025, alongside the hashtag "NuclearLeak".
The post's three images show people wearing face masks and protective gear emerging from tunnels that have been cut into the side of a hill and a structure built into the landscape.
They were shared after India and Pakistan agreed a ceasefire on May 10, bringing to a halt four days of deadly jet fighter, missile, drone and artillery attacks between the nuclear-armed neighbours (archived link).
The fighting was touched off by an attack on April 22 in the Indian-administered side of Kashmir that killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindu men, which Delhi blamed on Islamabad. Pakistan denies any involvement and has called for an independent probe.
Posts on social media claim Kirana Hills was struck during the latest conflict, and articles on Indian news sites have also speculated about whether the location had been targeted.
Similar posts were shared elsewhere on X.
But India has denied that Pakistan's nuclear facilities were targeted during the countries' most recent conflict, with Air Marshal A.K. Bharti telling reporters they "have not hit Kirana Hills" (archived link).
Islamabad's foreign office separately dismissed media reports alleging Pakistani nuclear facilities were compromised during the conflict, leading to radiation leaks (archived link).
And, responding to a query from the Indian Express, the International Atomic Energy Agency refuted reports of a radiation leak from any nuclear facility in Pakistan (archived link).
Closed Kazakhstan test site
Reverse image searches on Google found the three images used in the false posts were in fact taken at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where 456 nuclear tests were conducted over 42 years until Kazakhstan shut down the facility on August 29, 1991 (archived link).
The photo of people wearing face masks emerging from a tunnel was taken from an August 2012 blog titled, "Visit to the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site" (archived link).
According to the blog poster's biography, they work as a nuclear engineer and use the platform to share their nuclear-themed travel experiences.
The image of people in protective gear walking out of a tunnel can be found in a press release issued by the Kazakhstan government in 2021 for a photo exhibition dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site (archived link).
The final image of a structure built into the landscape was sourced from an ABC news article titled, "The Polygon: Former Soviet Union nuclear test site on Kazakh Steppe now open for tours" (archived link).
The image is captioned, "An underground bunker used to monitor Soviet era nuclear tests".
AFP has debunked other false claims related to the recent conflict between India and Pakistan here.
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