Amid the Red Sea Crisis, a video is going viral on social media platforms depicting a huge black smoke plume billowing from a container vessel in the waters of the sea. Users on social media platforms are fervently sharing this video and claiming that a US cargo ship has just been hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen.
Sharing this video on X(Twitter), a user named ‘Wajid Khan’ wrote: “Yemen’s Ansarullah Houthis fired 3 cruise missiles at an American ship for the first time today A missile fell on the ship and the ship caught fire Yemeni Houthis started attacking American and British ships after Israel” (Translated to English)
The archive version can be seen here.
Followed by Wajid Khan, several users shared this video on X(Twitter) and made similar claims.
Fact-Check
To determine the reality of the above viral video, the DFRAC team converted the viral video into some keyframes and reverse-searched it on Google. Meanwhile, we found a similar one on YouTube.
Video found on YouTube
We found a similar video on the YouTube channel of a media outlet The Sun
mentioning: “An explosion was reported on a container ship off the port of Colombo, Srilanka, days after a fire broke out on the vessel” in its description. Moreover, the video was uploaded three years back.
Media reports from Reuters and Independent.co.uk
According to a media report published by the Independent.co.uk on May 25, 2021,an explosion occurred Tuesday on a ship anchored near Sri Lanka’s capital on which a fire had been burning for several days, prompting the crew’s evacuation, officials said. The container vessel MV X-Press Pearl was anchored about 9.5 nautical miles (18 kilometers) northwest of Colombo and waiting to enter its port when the fire erupted four days ago, the Sri Lankan navy said.
Another media report by Reuters from the year 2021 also reported similar facts regarding the above viral video.
Conclusion
It is clear from DFRAC’s fact-check that the viral video claiming a US cargo ship was hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen is misleading as the video dates back to 2021 showing the incident of explosion occurred in a ship anchored near Sri Lanka’s capital on which a fire had been burning for several days.
