These events did not take place on the same day, nor were they all where claimed to be
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 20, 2020 at 12:24
- 5 min read
- By Marion DAUTRY, Katarina SUBAŠIĆ, AFP Belgrade
- Translation and adaptation Tendai DUBE , AFP South Africa
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“All in 24hrs. Incase you missed (sic),” reads a Facebook post from August 6, 2020. It has since been shared more than 300 times from a Kenyan page.
Another version of the claim was shared in South Africa the next day and read: “All of this happened in the last 24 hours if you aren’t paying attention.”
The posts are accompanied by a compilation of six photos of explosions or fires allegedly taken in Beirut in Lebanon, Hyesan in North Korea, Wuhan in China, United Arab Emirates, Najaf in Iraq and the town of Saint Paul in the US state of Minnesota.
Although some of the images show genuine events, not all of them were labelled with the correct locations.
The first image titled “Beirut, Lebanon” is accurate. AFP Belgrade ran a reverse image search and traced the photo to footage of the devastating chemical blast that ripped through Beirut on August 4, 2020, killing at least 177 people, and injuring thousands.
Reported explosion in North Korea
The second image from the collection shows giant flames erupting behind trees and is identified as “Hyesan, North Korea”. The nature of the political regime makes it difficult to confirm any information. However, Radio Free Asia published on August 5th, 2020, a report on the explosion with a short video clip from August 3, 2020, showing the exact scene, recognisable by the shape of the trees.
The news agency Associated Press published a similar video, filmed by Wang Bo, “a travel agent who said he shot it from a park in the Chinese border town of Changbai”.
According to the agency’s report, “there has been no official word from North Korea or China about what happened in the North Korean city of Hyesan on Monday. But South Korean media and outside monitoring groups reported that gas explosions in a residential area left dozens of people dead or injured. The AP couldn’t independently confirm the reports.”
A factory near Wuhan
The South China Morning Post reported on “a flash explosion” that took place on August 3, 2020 at a factory in which “at least six people were killed and four were injured”, citing state media. The report shows a video filmed at the scene of the blast, including an image used in the photo compilation that was labelled as “Wuhan, China”.
The explosion happened in the city of Xiantao, some 100 kilometres from Wuhan. The same screenshot of the blast with Chinese inscriptions can be seen in this report from the Daily Mail.
Fire at a market in the UAE, not Iraq
The compilation shows two photos of massive fires, one located in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one said to be in Najaf, Iraq.
However, the two photos show the same fire that broke out at a market in Ajman on August 5, 2020, in UAE, which was reported by Global News and The National.
“The fire broke out in the market, which has 125 stores and seven main entrances, and was put out in collaboration with the Civil Defense of Dubai, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain, without any human casualties or fatalities,” read a statement by UAEs interior ministry on August 6, 2020.
The two pictures are screenshots from videos that have circulated on social media. The same video appears located correctly in Ajman, but also incorrectly in Najaf, Iraq. However, a block of buildings is visible in the background of the video which AFP Fact Check identified on Google Maps as located about 1.5 kilometres away from the market in Ajman, confirming the video was taken in UAE and not in Iraq.
Iranian news agency MEHR reported that a fire did break out in warehouses in Najaf on August 6, 2020. This incident was not shown in the Facebook posts.
Fire in housing, hotel development in St. Paul
The last image in the gallery is described as “St. Paul, MN”, and shows a building in flames. It was indeed taken in the American town of Saint Paul in Minnesota.
According to a report on the website of a local television channel KTSP, a fire broke out at the Seven Corners Gateway development site on August 4, 2020.
In conclusion, the incidents that these images depict took place over several days, rather than within 24 hours, and some of the locations were incorrectly identified.
The images in the misleading post have also been used in other posts shared in Serbia claiming to show financial institutions on fire and proof that the global economy was collapsing. AFP Fact Check's team in Belgrade debunked the claims here.
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