Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
Nuclear plant explodes due to earthquake in Turkey
The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
Fact
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the video, which led us to this tweet by Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri, dated August 4, 2020.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search for “Beirut August 2020 explosion”, which led us to this Youtube video uploaded by Sky News on August 4, 2020. The description read, “The moment of the huge Beirut explosion was caught on camera by social media users.” A similar report by DW News can be seen here.
According to Al Jazeera, on August 4, 2020, a massive explosion in the Port of Beirut ripped through Lebanon’s capital, killing 218 people, injuring 7,000 and leaving 300,000 displaced. A fire at the Beirut port reportedly caused the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which had been improperly stored in a port warehouse for six years.
Result: False
Sources
Youtube video, Sky News, August 4, 2020
Youtube video, DW News, August 4, 2020
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
