Fact Check: Video of US-cargo ship on fire is not related to recent missile attack by Yemen rebel group Houthi
Yemen Houthi rebels launched an anti-ship cruise missile on a US-owned and operated container ship on January 15, 2024. The US military stated that no significant injuries or damage was reported and that the ship is continuing its journey after the incident in the Gulf of Aden.
Claim :
Viral video shows US-owned cargo ship hit by a missile attack by the Yemen rebel group Houthi near the Yemen coastFact :
The video shows the Singapore ship caught on fire near the Sri Lankan coast in the year 2021. It is not related to the recent missile attack near Yemen.
Yemen Houthi rebels launched an anti-ship cruise missile on a US-owned and operated container ship on January 15, 2024. The US military stated that no significant injuries or damage was reported and that the ship is continuing its journey after the incident in the Gulf of Aden. The Yemeni rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Amidst this, a video showing a huge cargo ship burning in flames is in circulation with the claim that it shows the US-owned cargo ship that was recently hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen.
The video is shared with the caption “WW3 HIGH ALERT. A US-owned cargo ship was just hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations security agency reported it as a "vessel hit from above by a missile" on its website. "
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The viral video shows a container ship on the coast of Colombo, Sri Lanka that exploded in May 2021.
When the key frames extracted from the viral video were searched using Google reverse image search, we found a YouTube video published by the YouTube channel of ‘The Sun’ with the title ‘Explosion on burning container ship carrying Nitric acid’. This video was published on May 25, 2021.
The description of the video states that “An explosion was reported on a container ship off the port of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Tuesday, days after a fire broke out on the vessel, which is carrying 25 tonnes of nitric acid. Black smoke poured from the Singapore-flagged X Press Pearl. The fire first broke out on Thursday, May 20, before the situation deteriorated. Singapore’s Daily Mirror reported that all 25 crew were evacuated and that two had been hospitalized with injuries. The explosion sent several containers into the sea, the Mirror said. The MV X-Press Pearl, a container vessel sailing with a Singaporean flag and carrying cosmetics and chemicals including 25 tonnes of nitric acid, was anchored off the Colombo harbour when a container on it caught fire on Friday (May 21), officials said.
The Facebook page of SNP Ship Management Private Limited also shared the video of the ship catching on fire with the caption “Explosion reported from inside the container vessel MV X-Press Pearl off Sri Lanka. All 25 crew members evacuated safely out of the vessel” on May 26, 2021.
According to a report published on Aljazeera on May 25, 2021, an explosion on a ship anchored near Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo prompted the crew’s evacuation. The container vessel MV X-Press Pearl was anchored about 9.5 nautical miles (18km) northwest of Colombo and was waiting to enter its port when the fire erupted four days ago, the Sri Lankan Navy said.
It said it believes the fire was caused by chemicals being transported on the Singapore-flagged ship. The ship was carrying 1,486 containers, including 25 tonnes of nitric acid and other chemicals which it loaded at the port of Hazira, India, on May 15, it said. The vessel’s 25-member crew includes Philippine, Chinese, Indian and Russian nationals.
Therefore, the video of a Singapore-flagged ship exploding and catching fire near the Srilankan shore from the year 2021 is being passed off as the US container ship attacked by the Yemen rebels recently. The claim is False.
