Old video claimed to be of recent fireworks factory explosion in West Bengal

Context

On May 16, an explosion occurred at an illegal firecracker factory in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district that left nine people dead. The Indian Express reported that the illegal factory was run by a man named Krishnapada Bag out of his house where large quantities of suspected gunpowder were reportedly kept.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered an inquiry by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) into the incident. The opposition's demand that the case be taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA); which included a plea filed by West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari was denied by Calcutta High Court on May 18.

Amid this, a video of a large scale explosion across a crops field has been going viral on social media, claiming to show the firecracker factory blast. The video shows huge plumes of smoke rising from the explosion site, and a man momentarily running at the beginning of the clip. The clip went viral with captions in Bengali and English. BJP leader Naveen Kumar Jindal also shared the video on May 18, targeting Banerjee saying, "Mamata Bano is not bothered at all." However, he has since deleted the tweet.

In Fact

On May 18, the West Bengal Police debunked the claim tweeting, “This video is being circulated by some visual media channels & in social media as the blast. Actually it is the visual of Pooram festival in Kerala. #WBP appeals to all to refrain from circulation of fake news and warns strict action against the violators.”

We looked for Pooram celebration videos from Kerala and came across several uploads of the same video on multiple platforms throughout 2022. One of the toldest uploads on YouTube is from a Kerala travel vlog called “Youtube Peedika” dated March 18, 2022, with over 87.5k views and 4k likes. It is a YouTube short titled “Palakkad Kavassery Vedikkettu at its best.” Kavassery is a village in Kerala, and vedikkettu translates to fireworks.

We also looked for other videos of the 2022 Kavassery Pooram fireworks and found the same visuals uploaded by a channel called WhAtEvEr TV. The video had been uploaded with the title: "Kerala Fireworks Festival, Firecracker Festival in Kerala." We also came across some longer videos by other accounts claiming they were from the 2022 festival celebrations in Kerala.

While Logically Facts was unable to independently verify the origin and location of the visuals seen in the viral video, it is clear that the video predates the explosion in West Bengal.

 The Verdict

An old video has been incorrectly shared as visuals of the illegal firecracker factory blast in West Bengal's Egra in May 2023. The video has been available on the internet since March 2022, and therefore cannot be footage of the recent blast. Therefore, we have marked this claim false.