Old footage from China shared with false claims it shows attack on Israeli power plant

We’ve spotted several social media posts sharing videos and stills supposedly of a power plant in Israel’s northern city of Haifa being “blown up” by an Iranian missile.

While there have been reports of damage to an oil refinery in Haifa, this footage predates the recent conflict and actually shows scenes in China.

A video posted on X, and a Facebook post sharing stills from the clip, are captioned: “BREAKING NEWS IRAN has blown up the Haifa power plant with a ballistic missile. With the destruction of this 828 MW power plant, half of Israel is living in darkness.”

But these photos and videos were not taken in Israel. They match footage shared on YouTube on 18 November 2015 with captions referring to an incident in China.

The Sichuan Fire Department shared images on 13 November showing the same metal structure and spherical tanks and referred to a “chemical fire response drill” featuring an exercise that “simulated a disaster scene involving a leak, fire, and explosion in the benzene unit area of ​​an oil refinery”.

In a post on the Chinese social media app Weibo, the department said the scene was “comparable to a blockbuster movie, complete with special effects” and had occurred at a fire brigade training base in Chengdu.

Satellite imagery of that base matches the structure on fire in the photos circulating on social media. Another video posted in November 2015 referring to a fire and rescue exercise in Chengdu matches both the images posted by the Sichuan Fire Department and the viral miscaptioned video, strongly suggesting they show the same event.

It was reported on 30 March that an oil refinery in Haifa was hit by debris from an intercepted missile. The company that runs the refinery said there were no casualties, while energy minister Eli Cohen said there was no damage to production facilities or any effect on fuel supply.

This footage has been miscaptioned as Haifa before. We’ve seen many examples of miscaptioned images and videos circulating online amid the conflict in the Middle East, including footage falsely shared as a Hezbollah attack on a petrochemical plant in Haifa.

Before sharing content that you see circulating on social media, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a trustworthy and verifiable source. Our toolkit can help you to do this.