Old video of Explosion shared as Blast in Nuclear Plant in Turkey during Recent Earthquake…

Heart-wrenching reports of destruction keep surfacing from Turkey after a series of massive earthquakes rocked Turkey and its neighbouring countries. Many videos of the catastrophe and the devastation it left are shared on social media. Among these, we found few unrelated videos that are shared as earthquake in Turkey. 

One of the video shows huge clouds of smoke seen from a restaurant located at some distance from it. A colossal explosion follows the smoke. However, we found that this video is not from Turkey and has no relation with the recent earthquake.

Let us check out the misinformation spread on social media platforms and the actual context of the video being shared falsely in relation with Turkey earthquakes.

Viral Video

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In the tweet above, we can see the video showing a huge tower of smoke emerging from a distant location near what seems like a harbour. The visuals of the smoke tower are followed by a thunderous sound of explosion rocking a café/restaurant from where the video was being recorded. The caption of the tweet is as follows:

“#Tsunami

BREAKING: Nuclear plant explode due to #Earthquake in #Turkey. 

Not confirmed Is this real? ”

Even though the user is himself not convinced of the authenticity of the video, he shares it anyway in an attempt to elicit interactions from other users. However, this video is real but not from Turkey or Syria. In fact, the video is a few years old. Here are the facts about this video.

Fact Check

We did a keyword search on Google and YouTube using keywords related to the visuals. From the results, we found that the video is not from Turkey but from Lebanon. Sky News published the video on their YouTube channel, 2 years ago.

As you can see, the video was originally posted in 2020 and hence cannot be related to the recent earthquakes in Turkey. As per the description of the video, the visuals are of a massive blast that devastated the Lebanese capital city of Beirut in August 2020. 

As per media reports, a large storage of Ammonium Nitrate in the harbor area of Beirut exploded leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured. The blast also left hundreds and thousands of people homeless. 

Thus, the video is not from the recent Turkey earthquakes. Though there were rumors of Turkey’s under-construction Akkuyu Nuclear Plant was damaged. However, the Russian company building the plant have refuted these rumors. In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also confirmed from Turkish authorities that the Akkuyu Nuclear plant has not been impacted.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “Construction at the plant wasn’t affected, the IAEA said. U.N. atomic chief Rafael Grossi said the IAEA was in contact with the Turkish government to coordinate building-integrity assessments.”

The Russian Engineering company that is constructing the nuclear reactor, Rosatum have also refuted the rumors. A Reuters report quotes Anastasia Zoteeva, a representative of the company Rosatum as follows: “Earth tremors of about magnitude 3 were felt here… but our specialists have not revealed any damage to building structures, cranes and equipment.”

Conclusion

The video allegedly shared as explosion in Turkey’s nuclear plant is more than 2 years old. Social media users and media organizations published the video after a massive blast in Beirut, Lebanon in 2020. IAEA and Rosatum, Russian company building the nuclear plant, also refuted the rumors of Turkey’s under construction Nuclear Plant in Akkuyu being impacted.