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| - Fact Check: These videos of explosions are NOT from Turkey's nuclear power plant following earthquakes
Videos of explosions have gone viral on social media with the claim that they were caused by an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Turkey following the earthquakes. India Today's AFWA has found the videos to be old and not from Turkey.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is from a 2015 chemical blast at a factory in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Rescue operations are still underway in Turkey and Syria after three devastating earthquakes hit the region on February 6 and another one on February 7. Over 5,000 people are reportedly dead and thousands more are injured.
Amid this, two videos of explosions, one shot at night and the other during the day, are viral on social media. Those sharing the videos claimed that they were from an explosion that took place in a nuclear power plant in Turkey following the quakes.
AFWA found that both videos are old and not from Turkey.
AFWA Probe
We noticed multiple people on Twitter pointing out that the first video that showed an explosion at night was from China. With the help of a reverse search, we found the video uploaded by multiple YouTube channels in 2015. As per the descriptions provided by these channels, the video shows an explosion that took place in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
The Guardian also used this video in a report published on August 15, 2015. According to this report, the video was from successive blasts that took place in a chemical plant in Tianjin.
According to a BBC report published in November 2016, over 173 people were killed in this incident. The explosions took place in a building where toxic chemicals and gas were stored. 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 hazardous chemicals.
It’s noteworthy that AFWA fact-checked the same video in February 2022. At the time, people falsely claimed it showed a Russian airstrike in Ukraine.
Using reverse image search, we found that the second video that was shot during the day was shared by several media organisations in 2020. According to a BBC report containing the video, a blast occurred at Beirut port on August 4, 2020, due to a fire that triggered the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a port warehouse.
That blast killed 219 people and injured thousands. The explosion was so massive that it was heard 240 km away on the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. The blast caused severe damage to Beirut as many buildings around the port were destroyed. We found other videos of the blast too.
In December 2021, the same video was falsely circulated as an explosion in Karachi, Pakistan. AFWA debunked this at the time.
Does Turkey have a nuclear plant?
Reportedly, Turkey's Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently under construction, was not damaged by the recent earthquakes. Speaking to Reuters, an official from Rosatom, the Russian company building the plant, said, "Earth tremors of about magnitude 3 were felt here... but our specialists have not revealed any damage to building structures, cranes and equipment.".
According to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, earthquakes struck around 200 miles from the construction site of what is to be the country’s first nuclear power plant. The Wall Street Journal reported that the plant has been under construction since 2018 on Turkey’s southern coast.
It is hence clear that both videos in circulation are old and not related to the February 6 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
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