This video shows a lake covered with volcanic ash in Argentina after a volcano eruption in 2011

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 24, 2019 at 11:10
3 min read
By AFP India

A video has been viewed millions of times in multiple posts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which claim it shows sand in a desert south of the Saudi Arabian border. The claim is false; the footage has circulated online since 2011 in relation to reports about a lake in Argentina which was covered in ash after a volcanic eruption in neighbouring Chile; AFP photographers captured corresponding photos of the ash-covered lake in June 2011.

The video has been viewed more than seven million times after being published in this Facebook post on May 3, 2019. It has been shared more than 150,000 times.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

The clip, which is one minute, 24 seconds long, shows a person in an orange diving suit wading through water covered in a layer of ash.

The caption reads: “Location : South of Saudi Arabian border ....This is not water ... This is Sand ...Yes sand . It’s called Allen Alkhai desert.”

Keyword searches on Google found no place called the “Allen Alkhai desert” in or near Saudi Arabia. However there is a large desert region south of the Saudi border called “Rub al Khali”; here is an encyclopaedia entry.

The same video was also shared on Facebook here with a similar claim. It was also shared on Twitter here and on YouTube here with a similar claim.

The claim is false; the footage has circulated online since 2011 in relation to reports about a lake in Argentina which was covered in ash from a volcanic eruption in neighbouring Chile.

A reverse image search on Google found this identical video published on YouTube on June 13, 2011.

The YouTube video's title states: “Buceando en cenizas volcanicas -Diving in Volcanic Ash”.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading Facebook post (L) and the YouTube video (R):

The video’s Spanish-language caption translates to English as: “Diver trying to swim in Lake Nahuel Huapi, which is covered by a thick layer of volcanic ash emitted by Puyehue volcano.”

At the one minute four seconds mark, a person can be heard saying in Spanish: "Metido como dos metros dentro del agua", which translates to English as: "Something is like two metres in the water".

Lake Nahuel Huapi is located in southwest Argentina, near the border with Chile.

Puyehue volcano erupted in Chile in June 2011; here is an AFP report from the time.

Multiple media reports from June 2011 – for example here in The Atlantic and here in The Telegraph – say that ash from Puyehue’s eruption travelled to Argentina, covering places including Lake Nahuel Huapi.

AFP also published photos from Lake Nahuel Huapi covered in volcanic ash from the eruption. Below is a screenshot of this shot taken by AFP photographer Francisco Ramos Mejia:

The caption states: “People on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi's Machete branch, touch the ashes from Chile's Puyehue volcano which practically cover its surface, near Villa La Angostura, in the Argentine province of Neuquen, taken on June 19, 2011.”

“Thousands of evacuated Chileans were allowed to return home Sunday two weeks after the eruption of the Puyehue volcano, which sent a huge ash cloud into the sky and disrupted air travel in the southern hemisphere.”

Other high quality footage of the lake covered in ash after the volcano eruption was published on YouTube here on June 16, 2011.

The video is embedded below:

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