A video of a factory fire in southern Taiwan has surfaced amid social media posts that falsely linked the blaze to recent fighting between the Burmese military and ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s northern Shan State. The clip matches other footage of the fire at an industrial park in Tainan published by Taiwanese media.
“Blast at ammunition storage facility in Laukkai targeted for the third time,” read a Burmese-language Facebook post dated July 19, 2024.
Myanmar’s junta repeatedly bombed Laukkai in July, a town near the border with China that has been held by the rebel Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army since January 2024 (archived link).
The last attack took place on August 2 and hit a hospital, killing 10 people (archived link).
The accompanying 30-second video showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the air from a distant fire.
In the video, a male voice can be heard saying: “Laukkai has been bombed in an air raid. The ammunition storage has been destroyed.”
A sticker in Burmese repeats the claim.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military coup in February 2021, which ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked conflict across the country.
The same video was also posted on YouTube and TikTok along with similar false claims.
But the video shows a fire at a factory in southern Taiwan.
Factory explosion in Taiwan
Keyword searches and reverse image searches using keyframes from the video led to a longer TikTok video posted on July 18, 2024, with Indonesian captions such as “Taiwan is on fire” (archived link).
Below is a screenshot of the video of the fake post (left) and the TikTok video (right):
In the original footage, no one speaks.
Further searches turned up a July 18, 2024, Taiwan News video report that an explosion had occurred at a factory in the southern city of Tainan (archived link).
Aerial footage in the video included a Chinese temple and a blue water tower, which match the elements seen in the TikTok video.
A separate article by Taiwan News reported that the fire broke out in the Shanshang Industrial Zone in Tainan and that all workers were evacuated. No casualties were reported in the incident (archived link).
Google Maps Street View images of the industrial area show elements that match those in the TikTok video, including a sign for the Guang Eou Aluminum Factory and the Red Temple (archived link).
Below is a screenshot of a frame from the TikTok video (left) and the Google Street View footage (right):
