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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Disasters & emergencies fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about disasters & emergencies. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,262 published reviews in this topic

NewtralDisasters & emergencies

Las imágenes de la explosión en una planta de Venezuela

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned a widely shared video presented as showing an explosion at the Guri hydroelectric plant in Venezuela’s Bolívar state. Newtral reports that the video had been shared more than 29,000 times on Facebook. Its investigation found that the footage was old and did not show the Venezuelan plant. Newtral says a reverse-image search of frames found the video had already appeared on YouTube in 2015. The review also reports that websites located the incident at a chemical plant in Renqiu, Hebei province, China. In the complete video, the voice of a man speaking Chinese can be heard during the explosion. The review further says Newtral compared the images with the Venezuelan plant’s electrical substation using Google Earth and Google Images, and found they did not correspond. The footage had also been misrepresented as showing an explosion at France’s Flamanville nuclear plant in 2017. Newtral cites French reporting that the video was at least from November 2015 and that an Asian language could be heard. Taken together, the reported earlier appearance, Chinese-language audio, and mismatch with the Guri facility support the review’s conclusion that the video did not depict an explosion at the Venezuelan plant.

NewtralDisasters & emergencies

Las imágenes de un accidente en Afganistán que son del vuelo de Ethiopian Airlines

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a video shared as showing the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash of March 10, 2019. Newtral says the footage instead shows a crash in Afghanistan on April 29, 2013. It identifies the aircraft as a Boeing 747 operated by National Air Cargo Group, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base while bound for Dubai. The review describes the aircraft’s cargo and the human toll: it was carrying military equipment, and all seven crew members, who were American, died. It reports that the same video was published by news outlets two days after the Afghanistan crash and that the BBC, The Guardian and National Post identified it as footage of that incident. The review also says CNN reported that the recording came from a contractor’s vehicle dashboard camera. The review points to the US National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation as further evidence connecting the footage to the Afghanistan crash. It says investigators later concluded that the crash happened because five large military vehicles aboard the aircraft were not properly secured, and also found inadequate FAA oversight of the special cargo. These details identify a different crash, aircraft and date from the Ethiopian Airlines incident named in the claim.

Pesa CheckDisasters & emergencies

China grounded all its Boeing Max 8 following the deadly Ethiopia Airlines crash

Publisher’s rating: TRUE

Related reporting supports the central claim. A later account of the Ethiopian Airlines disaster says that, following the crash, “Ethiopia joined China and other countries in grounding their fleets of Boeing 737 Max 8 jets.” This directly identifies China as among the countries that grounded the aircraft type in response to the crash. The account identifies the disaster as the March 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed all 157 people on board. It therefore connects the reported grounding to the specific event in the claim, rather than to a different aviation incident. The excerpt does not provide the Chinese government’s order, its date, or a count of Chinese aircraft grounded. It supports the claim that China grounded its 737 Max 8 fleet, but does not independently document those operational details.