An old video of an explosion is being shared with a false claim that it shows an attack by the Indian Army on Pakistan’s nuclear site, Kirana Hills.
BOOM found that the video predates the recent India-Pakistan conflict. We traced it back to May 2015, when it was being shared in connection with a blast in Yemen.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a global nuclear watchdog confirmed to The Indian Express that there had been no radiation leak or release from any nuclear facility in Pakistan after claims of Indian Air Force hitting Pakistan's Kirana Hills, which reportedly houses nuclear installations, went viral.
The video is being shared with a Hindi caption that translates to, "Kirana Hills Pakistan (Radiation Risk)"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Fact Check
BOOM extracted keyframes from the video and performed reverse image searches, which led to several social media posts from May 2015 featuring the same footage. The captions stated that it was an explosion that took place in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Several posts sharing the 2015 video claimed that the explosion occurred at Noquam Mountain in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Taking a cue, we ran a related keyword search and found multiple news reports from 2015 featuring similar explosion visuals from Yemen.
On May 11, 2015, Yemeni news outlet Yafa News reported, citing local residents and eyewitnesses, that powerful explosions shook the Mount Noquam area, with shrapnel scattering across nearby streets and alleys. The blasts were the result of an airstrike targeting weapon depots on the mountain, added the report.
A comparison between a photo of the 2015 explosion in Yemen, featured in the report, and a scene from the viral video is shown below.
One such video report, published on April 21, 2015, on Al Jazeera English’s YouTube channel, is seen below.
A report by The New York Times stated that a fragile cease-fire took effect in parts of Yemen on the night of May 12, 2015 — the first negotiated pause in hostilities since Saudi Arabia launched its bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in late March.
