| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Old video of chemical blast in China circulated as Russian bombing of Ukraine
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in a televised address on Thursday, announced a military operation in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Soon after, a video of a massive explosion started circulating on social media, with claims that it was from the embattled country.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This video is from a 2015 chemical blast at a factory in the Chinese port city of Tianjin. However, moments after Putin declared war on Ukraine, large explosions were reported in Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised address on Thursday, February 24, announced a military operation in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Soon after, a video of a massive explosion started circulating on social media, with claims that it was from the embattled country.
"Ukraine explosion fires started by Russian airstrike set off a chain reaction at Luhansk power plant," read the caption to one such video.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here, and here.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the claims along with the video were misleading. This video was from a 2015 chemical blast in China.
AFWA probe
By reverse-searching the keyframes of the viral clip, we found the same video uploaded by multiple YouTube channels in 2015. This confirms that the video is old and not related to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis.
As per descriptions provided by YouTube channels, the video was from an explosion that took place in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Taking a cue from this we performed a keyword search on Google and found the same video carried with credits to Reuters in an August 2015 report by The Guardian. According to this report, the video was from successive blasts that took place in a chemical plant in the industrial area of Tianjin.
The description of the video provided by The Guardian reads as follows, "A video filmed by stunned eyewitness, Dan Van Duren, captures the moment successive huge blasts tore through an industrial area in the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Wednesday. The explosions took place where toxic chemicals and gas were stored and killed at least 55 people, including firefighters. The blasts were so large they were seen by satellites in space"
The video was also shared by the BBC on its YouTube channel on August 14, 2015.
According to a BBC report published in November 2016, over 173 people were killed in the incident. Around 49 people, including employees of the factory and government officials, were jailed by a Chinese court for their role in the blast caused by the illegal storage of 11,300 tonnes of hazardous chemicals.
Explosions in Ukraine
Meanwhile, as per reports, moments after Putin declared war on Ukraine, large explosions were witnessed in Kyiv and Kharkiv. Journalists who were on the ground reported hearing the sound of blasts in Kyiv and several cities near the frontline and along the country's coast.
It is, however, clear that the video in question is more than five years old and has nothing to do with the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
(With inputs from Sanjana Saxena in Lucknow)
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)