Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
Claim
A video of a powerful explosion, purportedly from Beirut, is being shared on social media platforms.
The image has been shared on Instagram by user ‘_techmech’ with the hashtags #beirut #bomb #explosive #war.
Fact
We started our investigation by conducting a keyword search with the words “Beirut”, “war” and “explosion” but could not find any recent reports regarding any war or explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.
Upon going through the comments section, we noticed that a few users had commented saying that the explosion was from two years ago when a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate blew up in Beirut after catching fire.
Using this as a clue we conducted a keyword search with the words “Beirut”, “warehouse explosion” on Google and found several videos of an explosion that occurred in Beirut on 4th August, 2020.
We also found a report by BBC uploaded on their website on 11th August, 2020 titled ‘Beirut explosion: What we know so far’.
Following a horrific explosion in Beirut on August 4 that left at least 200 people dead and 5,000 injured, the Lebanese government resigned amid mounting public outrage, the report stated.
Hassan Diab, the prime minister of Lebanon, attributed the explosion to 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that he said was kept in a port warehouse unsafely.
Similar quantities of the chemical were transported on board the MV Rhosus, a cargo ship operating under the flag of Moldova, which arrived in Beirut in 2013 after encountering mechanical difficulties while en route from Georgia to Mozambique.
Although we could not find the original source of the video, it is clear that the explosion in Beirut occurred in August, 2020 and by not sharing when the event happened, the post misleads users into thinking that it is recent.
Result: Missing Context
Our Sources
Youtube video by SkyNews on 4th August, 2020
Youtube video by Global News on 4th August, 2020
Report by BBC on 11th August, 2020
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Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
