Image of South Korean warehouse fire falsely shared as destroyed Iranian fleet
- Published on March 18, 2026 at 10:15
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
The United States torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean on March 4, killing dozens of sailors, but a photo shared online of a massive blaze is unrelated to the Iran war. The image instead shows a fire at a logistics centre in South Korea in November 2025.
"An Iranian warship was engulfed in flames as US Tomahawk missiles and stealth jets obliterated the regime's navy in a devastating strike," reads an Indonesian-language Facebook post on March 5, 2026.
The attached photo shows a massive column of black smoke issuing from a burning building, with overlaid text repeating the claim.
The same image and claim circulated elsewhere on Facebook after joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 triggered a region-wide war that is now entering a third week (archived link).
On March 4, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in international waters off Sri Lanka, killing at least 84 sailors (archived link).
The ship was among three vessels taking part in a naval exercise organised by India off the coast of Visakhapatnam when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran (archived link).
However, the circulating image is unrelated to the ongoing war.
A reverse image search on Google found the same picture published by South Korean online news portal Newspatch on November 15, 2025 in a report about a fire at a logistics facility in the country's South Chungcheong province (archived link).
The report states the fire at the E-Land logistics warehouse containing clothes and shoes was brought under control after roughly nine hours, with no casualties reported.
Singaporean broadcaster CNA uploaded a similar video of the fire to its official Facebook page on November 17, 2025 (archived link).
The logistics centre can be seen in Naver Maps street view imagery of Cheonan city in the South Chungcheong province (archived link).
AFP has debunked a slew of misinformation stemming from the Middle East war.
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