False posts about bus blast in Pakistan misuse old photos
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 12, 2021 at 05:05
- Updated on August 12, 2021 at 05:55
- 2 min read
- By AFP India
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"After bus blast, Chinese workers in Pakistan seen carrying AK-47 rifles," reads a Facebook post that shared the images on July 22, 2021.
The misleading post circulated online following a bus explosion in mid-July that killed 12 people including nine Chinese nationals in Pakistan, AFP reported.
The bus was carrying around 40 Chinese engineers, surveyors and mechanical staff to a hydropower dam construction site in northwestern Pakistan.
The Pakistan government previously blamed the blast on a mechanical failure that led to a gas leak, but China has called it a bombing.
The same images were also shared with a similar claim on Facebook such as here and here; and also here and here on Twitter.
However, the claim is false: both images have circulated online more than a year before the bus blast.
Reverse and keyword searches found the first image published here on a Chinese blog on May 4, 2020; and here in an article about overseas workers on a Chinese website on May 5, 2020.
Both posts purport to show how Chinese employees looked before and after they were stationed in Africa.
Further reverse and keyword searches found the second image was posted here on a Chinese blog on March 28, 2018; and here on a Chinese website on March 30, 2018.
Both articles are about a Chinese worker in Pakistan.
Below is a set of screenshot comparison of the images in misleading posts (L) and their corresponding photos uploaded on Chinese blogs (R):
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