| schema:text
| - Fact Check: El Popo volcano causing water on streets to boil in Mexico? Here's the truth behind viral clip
Following an increase in the activity of the active Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico, an unrelated video from Ecuador was widely shared.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
This video is not from Mexico. It’s from Ecuador and shows water boiling because of a warehouse fire.
Popocatépetl, an active volcano located roughly 70 km southeast of Mexico City, Mexico, has reportedly witnessed increased activity since May 21. This prompted authorities on May 23 to close schools and parks, conduct safety drills, and warn millions of residents of a possible evacuation.
Amid this, videos and photos of the fiery show put up by the “El Popo” (as the volcano is locally known) have been flooding social media platforms. One such video purportedly shows hot water bubbling up and steam rising from cracks in the streets of Veracruz, Mexico. Archives of such posts can be found here, here, and here.
India Today, in its investigation, found that this video has nothing to do with the volcano or even Mexico — it’s from Ecuador.
Our Probe
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video led us to a tweet from an Ecuadorian news website from April 27 that featured the viral video. According to the tweet, the video showed damage caused to the Pedro Menéndez Gilbert overpass in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
According to a news report about the incident, a fire broke out in the Pedro Menéndez Gilbert Avenue on April 27. Firefighters from 19 city units were summoned to extinguish the fire that reportedly started from a warehouse under an overpass. After about two hours, the Benemérito Fire Department of Guayaquil declared that the fire was under control. Ecuadorian news channel Ecuavisa’s report on this featured similar visuals of water boiling, shot from a different angle.
The firefighters reportedly had to break parts of the overpass to control the fire underneath. Traffic was also reportedly diverted from the overpass as a precautionary measure. We also found a tweet from the Guayaquil Municipal Transit Authority dated April 27, 2023, about the traffic congestion caused by the fire. The Guayaquil Fire Department also tweeted about the incident on April 27, sharing photos and videos of firefighters trying to control the fire.
Thus, it’s clear that a video of a fire in Ecuador was wrongly linked to the ongoing volcanic activities in Mexico.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
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)