Are the cars in Saudi Arabia melting due to rising temperature ?Fact Check!

A Facebook user named ‘Sanjay Bhanarkar’ shared a post on 12 June 2019. The post as translated from Hindi quoted “The temperature in the areas near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has risen to 62 degrees. May Allah save us!” As per this post, the claim is that the temperature of Saudi Arabia has risen to 62 degrees, due to which the cars are melting. Let us see what the facts are!

NARRATIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

FacebookPost | ArchivedLink

FACT CHECK:

Due to Global warming, temperatures are rising everywhere in the world. In Maharashtra too, the heat burns have increased than before. Many cities have reached high temperature up to 47-48 degree Celsius. A post is circulating on Social Media, similar to this issue, which has a photograph of two melting cars. The claim is that these cars melted because of the temperature rising up to 62 degree in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fact Crescendo team checked the facts about this photograph.

We searched the photograph using ‘Google Reverse Image’ and we found that there are other narratives circulating in the internet since last year. A Blogspot website called ‘FactsandFiction’ has given a reference of a website called ‘Kold.com’ and shared a similar photograph. The article states that this photograph is from Tucson in Arizona, USA. As per this article, a building under construction caught fire on 19 June 2018. The fire was so intense that the areas surrounding the construction site incurred a lot of damage. Cars melted and people were forced out of their homes to save their lives.

Danny, a graduate student at the University of Arizona; who lived at the University Vista apartments nearby said that the fire was so intense that his car’s rear bumper melted.

KoldNews | ArchivedLink

According to the report on the local website, a fire broke out late night in the residential building named ‘The Mark’, a private hostel in Tucson city. There were no casualties; however there were materialistic losses of $ 10 million worth. Ten thousand dollars prize was also announced for finding the reason behind the fire. The crane on the building also melted. The video of this fire was shared from the Tucson Fire Brigade’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Twitter Post | ArchivedLink

Kold News 13 has given a photo of the melted car. Comparison of photos from this website and the post shows the similarity between the two. You can see photos of other damaged cars on this link. Tucson city residents have shared videos / photos of the loss due to fire on Facebook. It also shows that the back parts of many cars have melted.

KoldNews | ArchivedLink

From the above information, we can see that the surrounding car was damaged in a building in Arizona’s Tucson city. However, what is the proof that the picture going viral is from Arizona’s Tucson City? No news has shown the exact photograph nor is the information of who shared it first available.

There is a high resolution image available of this post in the internet. Upon investigating this photo, we found a note on the wall behind the cars. When we zoomed in the area, we could make out the set of numbers written on it- 6240619. We searched on Google with this number.

The photo resolution image of the viral post is available on the Internet. After observing this photo, there is a slip on the back wall. After zooming see the number 624-0619. Taking this thread, we searched on Google with the key words ‘Tucson Arizona 6240619’.

In the search we found the university visa apartments in Tucson city. A student named Danny, from the same apartment in Cold News 13, said that his car melted. The Marc complex on E-10 Street and the N-Tindoll Avenue road in Tucson city was on fire on June 19, 2018. Both the addresses were verified on the Google Map, where the fire was located. In front of the building are the University Vista Apartments. From this, it is clear that the photographs are from Tucson city in the US, not in Saudi Arabia.

Google Maps

So, does Saudi Arabia have 62degree Celsius temperature?

The maximum temperature so far has been reported in Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia. There was 52 degree Celsius temperature on June 23, 2010. The world’s highest temperature record is in the name of California’s Death Valley in the United States, were the temperature was recorded of 56.7 degrees Celsius on July 10, 1913. This means that there is no 62 degree Celsius temperature anywhere in the world.

What is the temperature for a car to melt?

Suppose the temperature is 62 degree Celsius, then can the car’s body melt in such a heat? Car bumpers (back, trunk door) are possibly made from Polypropylene or thermoplastic polymers. The polypropylene melting point (boiling points) is 179 degrees Celsius. That means at 62 degrees, the car will not melt due to the temperature.

IN CONCLUSION:

Fact Crescendo has fact checked and confirms that the photograph is being share in the post with a wrong narrative. We categorise the story as FALSE.

FactCrescendo advises its readers to refrain from sharing such misleading and communally biased photographs and do a self-check on the true narrative of such incidents before believing them.