At least 14 people died when a deadly collision between an LPG tanker and a truck ignited a massive fire on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway on December 20.
Claim:
A video allegedly showing the accident is now going viral on social media.
Investigation:
Reverse searching keyframes from the viral video led us to the same clip, shared in a Reddit post dated October 12. According to it, this video shows an explosion at a gas station in the Chechen Republic.
Further searches led us to a post by the Russian state-controlled news outlet RT. Dated October 12, RT shared the video in question and said that Grozny locals captured the moment when a gas tank exploded and started hurling towards them following a huge blast at a gas station. Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic.
We then found several news reports about this incident. According to them, four people, including two children, died after a fuel tank exploded at a petrol station, causing a huge fireball in Russia’s Chechen Republic.
The incident took place on October 12, following which, the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, stated that he would personally take stock of the situation. He also made an Instagram post regarding the incident on October 13, offering condolences to the families of those who lost their lives.
Quoting the Emergency Situations Ministry of the region, reports added that this explosion took place on Grozny’s Mohammed Ali Avenue, close to the centre of the Chechen capital. The fire destroyed the gas station. A nearby apartment building and several cars were also damaged in the explosion that reportedly spread to an area of about 900 square metres.
The gas station where this incident happened had reportedly not been inspected for the last three years. At the time, multiple videos of this incident shot from different angles were shared by Al Jazeera as well.
Conclusion: A two-month-old video from an explosion in the Chechen Republic of Russia is falsely shared as from the Jaipur blast.
