Video shows TV prank disaster in Palestinian Territories, not cable car fire in China

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 18, 2022 at 11:18
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

Dramatic footage of smoke billowing from a burning cable car has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it was filmed in the southern Chinese city of Zhangjiajie. The claim is false; the video shows a TV prank that went wrong in 2015 in the Palestinian city of Jericho.

"Zhangjiajie’s cable car. 17 tourists became roast ducks, trapped in the cage without any escape," reads text superimposed on the video shared in a tweet on January 12.

The footage has been viewed more than 11,000 times.

Screenshot of the misleading tweet taken on January 14, 2022

The video has circulated since 2018 in similar posts that claim it shows an incident in Zhangjiajie, including here on Twitter, here on Facebook and here on YouTube.

However, the claim is false.

A keyword search found a longer version of the video published in a news report from March 9, 2015 headlined "Terrifying blaze engulfs cable car in Palestine".

"This video shows the terrifying moment a cable car in Palestine was engulfed by flames, forcing those inside to mount a daring bid for their lives," reads the report by UK newspaper Metro.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in misleading posts (left) and the video published by Metro (right).

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading posts (L) and the video published by Metro (R)

A further keyword search found a news report from March 4, 2015 by Palestinian-based Ma'an news agency which features the same footage.

The fire started during a TV prank show targeting actor Khalid al-Masou, who had been invited on to the Jericho Cable Car on the pretext of giving a media interview, it said.

"As part of the prank, the cable car was stopped and the actor was informed that the electricity had been cut off for an hour and a half. Minutes later, the cable car’s roof was set on fire as another part of the prank to frighten him."

However, the prank took a turn for the worse when the blaze grew uncontrollable.

The report features a video of Al-Masou describing the disaster and how he and the host escaped with minor injuries.

Various Palestinian media reported on the same incident, including here and here.

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