Old accident video clips falsely shared as visuals of a recent crude oil tanker explosion in Dubai - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
December 22, 2021
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of a recent crude oil tanker blast in Dubai. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a crude oil tanker explosion in Dubai.
Fact: The video shared in the post is made from video clips related to three different old fire accidents. The first video clip shows a 2018 incident of a tanker explosion in Italy. The second video clip shows the fire breakout due to a crude oil pipeline leakage in Cairo, Egypt. The last video clip shows an old fire accident that took place in a market in Ajman, UAE. This video has nothing to do with Dubai. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The video shared in the post is a combination of three different video clips. Let’s find the details of each video clip one by one.
Video Clip-1:
On observing the first video clip carefully, we could see the ‘USA TODAY’ watermark on the top right side of the video. When we searched for the video using relevant keywords, a video with similar visuals was found published on the ‘USA TODAY’ news website on 07 August 2018. This article reported it as the visuals of a fuel tanker explosion on a highway in Italy. Several other news websites have also published videos and articles reporting it as truck explosion visuals in Bologna, Italy. They can be seen here, here, and here.
Video Clip-2:
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, videos with similar visuals were found published by several news channels in July 2020. They can be seen here, here, and here. All these news channels reported it as the visuals of a massive fire that broke out because of a crude oil pipeline leakage in Cairo, Egypt. Reporting the complete details of the fire accident, several news websites have published articles. They can be seen here and here.  A total of 17 people were reportedly injured in this fire accident.
Video Clip-3:
On reverse image search, a video with similar visuals was found published by a YouTube channel on 07 August 2020. This YouTube user mentioned it as the visuals of a massive fire accident that took place inside a market in Ajman, UAE. On observing carefully, we could see the text ‘Belad Al Sham’ on a shop hoarding. On comparing the photos of the ‘Belad Al Sham’ shop in Ajman with the shop visuals seen in the photo, is confirmed that the incident had taken place in the Emirate of Ajman.
When we searched for more sources using relevant keywords, a similar fire accident photo was found in an article published by the ‘Tasnim News Agency’ on 06 August 2020. According to the article, a massive fire explosion took place in a closed fruit and vegetable market located near the industrial area of the emirate of Ajman. Reporting the same, several other news websites have also published articles about this fire accident. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an old fire accident visuals are shared as that of a crude oil tanker explosion in Dubai.