Dramatic video of tanker truck explosion shot in Brazil, not South Africa's Limpopo province
IN SHORT: A video of a tanker truck exploding on the side of the road has been circulating on social media. Claims that the incident took place in South Africa's Limpopo province are false.
"That Limpopo explosion that took place today is crazy," reads a common caption for a video that has been circulating on social media in South Africa since 4 July 2024. "Hope everyone who was trying to help survived."
The dramatic 12-second clip shows what seems to be a burning tanker truck on the side of a road. Almost immediately it explodes and flames cover the screen. The rest of the video shows the camera tumbling to capture random images as someone cries out.
Limpopo is South Africa's northernmost province, on the border with Zimbabwe. Some captions put the video's location as "between Louis Trichardt and Tshakuma", meaning Tshakhuma, two settlements near the border.
Others are highly critical.
"Why are people of this calibre given responsibility that is clearly beyond them?" one caption reads. "If this is 'equality' or 'equity' is it is also murder and destruction. It threatens us all in so many ways, but we can't change the nature of the beast or its privileges."
But does the video really show a "crazy" explosion in South Africa's Limpopo province?
X monetisation feeds disinformation?
The viral claim most likely began with a post from a verified X account (formerly Twitter) on 4 July.
But in the comments, other X users were quick to slam the post: "You can see Those road markings are not for South African roads."
Wanya. You can see Those road markings are not for South African roads pic.twitter.com/utJ2HwdD0D-- Schwarzenegger Chauke (@eliotchauke1) July 4, 2024
Another commented: "This is a Propane explosion that happened on the BR-010 near the Paragominas Palace Hotel in Brazil."
This is a Propane explosion that happened on the BR-010 near the Paragominas Palace Hotel in Brazil. https://t.co/WZsBDMzkGf-- ∎∎∎∎∎ (@SupaJacks) July 4, 2024
The comment includes a link to a Portuguese-language news article that includes the video. Brazil is a country in South America. Its official language is Portuguese.
A machine translation of the headline reads: "Tanker truck explodes after accident on highway in Pará; videos show moment."
The article says the tanker exploded after an accident on a highway between the municipalities of Paragominas and Ulianópolis in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. Three people were injured. The accident happened on 3 July, the day before the viral claim appeared online.
A Google search using the keywords "tanker explosion Pará Brazil" led to several other news reports on the incident, all of which placed it in the South American country.
There have been no news reports of a recent tanker explosion in South Africa's Limpopo.
One of the comments on the original X post suggested that the false claim was simply to garner views: "Atleast you'll get the views! Limpopo is Brazil this today?"
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, renaming it X, users have been able to earn money on the platform through subscriptions and advertising. But they have to be verified users, and this monetisation requires high engagement with their posts, in the form of views and comments.
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There have been concerns that monetisation is feeding sensationalist disinformation on the platform.
In October 2023, Musk threatened to demonetise X creators who posted false information. "Any posts that are corrected by Community Notes become ineligible for revenue share," he posted.
This came after the European Union challenged Musk to clamp down on the site's false content, which is illegal under the EU's Digital Services Act.
The act aims to ensure a "safe, predictable and trusted online environment, addressing the dissemination of illegal content online and the societal risks that the dissemination of disinformation or other content may generate".
