Metro explosion video is from 2021, not earthquake in Venezuela
- Published on June 25, 2026 at 22:41
- 2 min read
- By Lucía DIAZ, AFP Spain
- Translation and adaptation Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Two major earthquakes that devastated Venezuela on June 24, 2026, killing dozens and leaving survivors battling to rescue loved ones trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings, have also prompted a surge of old and unrelated videos spread out of context on social media. For example, one widespread clip was falsely claimed to show the quakes causing explosions on a Caracas metro, when the images were actually from an incident in 2021.
"Chaos in Caracas metro as powerful 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes hit Venezuela hard. Footage shows total panic underground," says a June 24, 2026 post on X sharing the sequence, in which passengers are evacuating a metro car amid sights and sounds of explosions.
Similar posts spread across X and other platforms, including in Spanish, Portuguese and other languages.
The video spread as offers of rescue support and aid poured into Venezuela from around the world after two massive earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 blasted areas west of Caracas within a minute of each other on June 24.
The two quakes -- the second registering as the strongest to hit the country in 126 years -- drove residents into the streets while buildings collapsed and electricity cut out, with the northern state of La Guaira hit particularly hard.
Nonetheless, the video of explosions at an underground metro station is unrelated to the tremors near the Venezuelan capital.
Reverse image searches surfaced the same visual in articles and social media posts from Spanish-language news outlets including El Diario, Agencia Carabobeña de Noticias and Infobae, all of which corresponded to an event that took place September 25, 2021 (archived here, here and here).
"Users of the Caracas Metro reported that one of the trains exploded at Los Dos Caminos station," the post from El Diario said.
#Exclusivo | Usuarios del Metro de Caracas denunciaron que uno de los trenes explotó en la estación Los Dos Caminos.
— El Diario (@eldiario) September 25, 2021
: @VaskDcpic.twitter.com/9028cxfdHd
AFP reached out to the videographer, credited in the El Diario post, but no response was immediately forthcoming.
The reports attributed the issue to a system failure.
The Caracas Metro provided updates about the situation in real time on X, reporting that staff were on site leading evacuations and the station had closed due to a train malfunction (archived here). Subsequent posts documented restoration efforts, and within two hours the service said operations had resumed (archived here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about Venezuela here.
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