Old clip of warehouse explosion in China shared as US airstrike on Iran
A video showing a large explosion is circulating on social media with false claims it shows a recent airstrike on Iran.
One post with more than 1,500 likes has overlaid text on the clip saying: “Shocking video from Bushehr, Iran: Massive violent explosion following a US airstrike.”
While there have been recent reports of US strikes on Bushehr, this video actually shows explosions at a warehouse in Tianjin, China, in August 2015. We’ve previously seen this footage being falsely shared as scenes from Ukraine and Tel Aviv.
Miscaptioned footage is a common form of misinformation we see online, especially during significant breaking news events. Our guides to verifying images and videos can help you consider whether what you’re seeing is genuine before sharing it.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this video actually shows explosions at a warehouse in Tianjin, China, in August 2015.
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