CCTV footage of car explosion from China viral in India with a false claim - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
8th May 2019 / 8:55 pm / Last updated: 8th May 2019
A video of a minibus catching fire on a street is being shared on social media. “There was a couple in a car. The lady sprayed perfume on her body. The man next to her was smoking… causing an explosion! With the fire burning, and the door couldn’t be opened to escape, the two were charred to death; advised ladies/gents not to use perfume-spray inside the car when someone smoking or anywhere near fire-site, like, kitchen, havan, open-fire, etc”, reads the message posted with the same video, by a Facebook page CCTV in Pune.
The name of the Facebook page ‘CCTV In Pune’ misleads users into believing that the incident had occurred in Pune. It can be noted that the details regarding the location of the incident have not been disclosed. The message claims that the woman seated next to the man (not clearly visible) in the car sprayed perfume while he smoked a cigarette when suddenly the vehicle burst into flames. The video has been viewed over 16 lakh times and shared close to 25,000 times.
There was a couple in a car. The lady sprayed perfume on her body. The man next to her was smoking… causing an explosion! With the fire burning, and the door couldn’t be opened to escape, the two were charred to death; advised ladies/gents not to use perfume-spray inside the car when someone smoking or anywhere near fire-site, like, kitchen, havan, open-fire, etc..
Posted by CCTV in PUNE on Tuesday, 16 April 2019
This video, posted with the same narrative by Facebook pages – Punjab Update and Citizen Journalist of Arunachal Pradesh – has garnered more than 100,000 views. Many other pages and individuals on Facebook have shared the video.
With the help of Invid, Alt News broke the video into multiple key-frames. On performing a Google reverse image search on one of the key-frames, we found many articles about the incident published by Chinese media. According to these articles, the video pertains to a car explosion which took place at a village of Liquan County in Shaanxi Province, China. The video is NOT from Pune, as implied.
Newsflare reported that a minibus transporting gas cylinders exploded after catching fire in northern China’s Xianyang city. One person, who was the driver seated in the car, died in the explosion. China Global Television Network had also reported about the incident on March 19.
Minibus driver dies in car explosion in NW China pic.twitter.com/tcuAPoDK4e
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) March 19, 2019
The video had also gone viral in the Chinese social media ecosystem with the same narrative which is currently circulating in India. Sample this tweet, with the identical narrative (Chinese language), posted below.
A video of a car explosion in China was shared in India with a false narrative misleading social media users into believing that this incident took place here.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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