Old video shows explosion in Beirut in 2020, not fire in South Korean factory

The video was shared along with similar claims on YouTube as well as on South Korean forums DC inside It is FM Korea.

But the clip is unrelated to the fire at the Hwaseong factory. It previously circulated in reports about a deadly explosion in Lebanon in August 2020.

Beirut video

A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google and YouTube found that the video matches images posted by Al Arabiya on YouTube on August 10, 2020, days after a massive explosion at the port of Beirut destroyed parts of the Lebanese capital (archived link).

The explosion killed more than 220 people and injured at least 6,500, AFP reported.

Authorities said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where a vast stockpile of the industrial chemical ammonium nitrate had been stored haphazardly for years.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the clip shared in the misleading post (left) and the video published by Al Arabiya (right):

O The clip published by Al Arabiya includes audio of a couple speaking in Arabic as they watch the fire.

Signs in Arabic language for Emirati logistics company Aramex can also be seen in warehouses in the video (archived link).

A CNN report August 2020, which also featured the clip, said it had been filmed by Imad Khalil and Lina Alameh, a couple who witnessed the explosion in his apartment near the port (archived link).

Both were seriously injured in the explosion and their apartment was nearly destroyed, the report said.

Images of the explosion in Beirut taken from other angles were widely published in international reports at the time, including by DW News It is Euronews (archived links here It is here).

Although many of the buildings seen in the video were damaged or destroyed, AFP was able to geolocate the approximate location of the filming in the port of Beirut in Google Maps (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison between scenes from the footage shared on TikTok (left and center) and a corresponding location shown in Google Maps Street View (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP:

AFP has already debunked the disinformation counting on images of the explosion in Beirut here, here It is here.