Claim: Visuals showing explosion of an electric car while charging.
A video of a car explosion is being widely shared across social media platforms with a claim it shows electric car explosion while charging. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video led us to a tweet from February 28, 2023, carrying an extended version of the viral clip. The datestamp on this camera footage read February 25, 2023. The tweet read, “In Samarkand (Uzbekistan), the balloon ricocheted and hit a gas station employee right in the head. The man died on the spot.”
Using this clue, we searched online and found a Turkish news report carrying the viral footage of the accident. The report stated that the fuel tank of a car exploded while a man was refuelling his car at a gas station in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It added that a part of the tank that blew up claimed the life of a 42-year-old officer who was trying to escape. Another report stated that a 1994 Nexia-3 car exploded at a gas station on Bedil street in Samarkand.
In Samarkand (Uzbekistan), the balloon ricocheted and hit a gas station employee right in the head.
— eye (@Evgeniy91234) February 28, 2023
The man died on the spot. #explosion #death #Uzbekistan #gasstation pic.twitter.com/kcnVcHZhC6
Several other media outlets reported about this car blast in Uzbekistan around that time. One such report contained a message from a telegram channel named “Samarqand viloyati FVB” the emergency department of the Samarkand Region. This message carried photos of the destroyed car and the broken red cylinder along with the details of the accident.
Roughly translated to English, the message stated that on February 25, at 11:30 am, a worker died at a fuel station on M. Bedil street, Samarkand, while refuelling the gas cylinder of a Nexia 3 car manufactured in 2019. No other casualties were reported. The same information was also shared by the department on its Facebook page.
While incidents of electric cars catching fire and exploding have earlier been reported in different parts of India, the viral video does not depict that.
Fact: The visuals show an explosion of a car due to the gas cylinder fitted in the car. The incident took place earlier on 26 February 2023 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Multiple news agencies and Uzbekistan’s emergency department acknowledged that the explosion was due to gas cylinder. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
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