Old video circulated as recent Saudi sofa factory fire
Recently, 16 Bangladeshis died in a fire at a sofa factory in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A video was circulated on social media claiming to show scenes of this incident. However, a fact-check by Dismislab reveals that the circulated video shows a fire that broke out at an iron factory in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, in March 2023.
On August 10, a video was posted from a Facebook profile with a caption reading, “Oh what is life, 17 Bangladeshis d-ied in a f-ire in Saudi Arabia.” In the 24-second video, multiple yellow trucks and a fire burning are seen. Up until the writing of this report, the video has been viewed more than 118,000 times and shared 581 times.
The video was shared with the same claim across multiple profiles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), groups, and pages on Facebook. The video was also seen being shared on YouTube under the same title from multiple (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) channels.
Conducting a reverse image search with the keyframes of the video during the investigation brought up a report published on March 4, 2023, by the United Arab Emirates-based media outlet Al-Ittihad. Translating the headline of this report yields, “A massive fire engulfs another major facility in Saudi Arabia.” The report stated, “A massive fire has broken out at a facility in the Dammam Industrial City in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and several Civil Defense teams have been attempting to extinguish the fire since Friday evening. However, no casualties have been reported so far.” The images used in this report show exact matches with multiple scenes from the circulated video.
Additionally, reports on the incident were found in multiple (1, 2, 3, 4) international media outlets, where scenes from the circulated video are seen.
That is to say, scenes of a fire at an iron factory located in Dammam Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, in 2023 are being circulated as the recent sofa factory fire incident in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
It is to be noted that on August 9, around 2pm local time, a fire broke out at a sofa factory in the Musa industrial area under the jurisdiction of Al-Shifa Police Station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In this, 16 Bangladeshis lost their lives on the spot. According to the latest press release from the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, the deceased were residents of Naogaon, Natore, and Rajshahi in Bangladesh.
