Fact Check: Viral video of destruction of buildings is not from ongoing Israel-Hamas war

India TV Fact Check: Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which led to the death of over 2800 people and destroyed numerous buildings in both Israel and Gaza, several videos are circulating on social media, depicting missile strikes on buildings. One such video has gone viral, showing multiple buildings being destroyed simultaneously, claiming that this event recently occurred in Gaza. However, when we fact-checked it, the video actually turned out to be from China.

A video is going viral on social media platform X. In the video, multiple buildings at a location appear to be collapsing simultaneously. All these buildings are seen falling to the ground in the video. This 8-second video was shared on October 11, 2023, by a user with the handle @Himmu1988 on platform X, with the caption, “Tell the ICC folks to postpone the World Cup for a bit. Currently, Israel's shots are more entertaining. I Stand With Israel”.

Image Source : SCREENSHOTVideo went viral on social media with false claim

When we watched this video carefully, we noticed that all the buildings were collapsing simultaneously at he same time. Additionally, no building appears to be collapsing onto another, rather, they seem to be falling into designated empty spaces on the ground. Furthermore, it's worth noting that no aerial attacks on the buildings are visible in the video. Therefore, we extracted some frames from this video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Images.

Image Source : SCREENSHOTNews related to the incident found on a website named Tweak Town

When we searched on Google using these frames, we found several news articles. One of them led us to a website called Tweak Town. The headline of this article reads, “Video captures 15 skyscrapers blowing up simultaneously.” According to this article, 15 buildings were demolished simultaneously, and this destruction was captured from various angles in the video. The article further mentions that this demolition was controlled, and the buildings demolished were part of the Liyang Star City Phase II project, which was originally started in 2011.

Image Source : SCREENSHOTOriginal video related to the incident found on YouTube channel

After further investigation, we found the original video of this incident. The video was posted on a YouTube channel named BILLIONS INC on September 14, 2021. The video's headline reads, “15 Unfinished Buildings Demolished in China in 45 seconds explosion.” In the video description, it is mentioned, “On August 27, in Liyang Star City, the second phase of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, 15 unfinished buildings were demolished by explosion. This is the scene where 15 unfinished buildings were destroyed simultaneously in southwestern China.” Here is the complete video:

When we thoroughly investigated this video, it turned out to be from the year 2021, and it does not depict a missile attack. Instead, it shows controlled demolitions in China, where 15 unfinished buildings were demolished using controlled explosions. So, the video is not related to the recent events in Gaza but rather shows the controlled demolition of unfinished buildings in China.
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