A series of three photographs circulating on social media claim to depict members of the U.S. Department of Energy inspecting a nuclear fallout site near Pakistan’s Kirana Hills, allegedly after an Indian airstrike on May 9. These images are being shared widely with captions suggesting a nuclear incident and international involvement in the aftermath.
A user on social media has shared the images, with the claim,” Members of the US Department of Energy were seen near Pakistan’s Kirana Hills, which India hit on May 9.”
Fact Check
However, a fact-check reveals that these claims are misleading. The photos in question are not recent, nor are they connected to any current events in Pakistan or India. Reverse image searches using Google Lens confirm that the images actually originate from Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, a location historically used by the former Soviet Union for nuclear experiments.
About the Semipalatinsk Test Site (The Polygon):
Located in northeastern Kazakhstan, the Semipalatinsk site spans approximately 18,000 square kilometers and was used for 456 nuclear tests during the Soviet era before its closure in 1991. Today, it is part of international research and decontamination efforts and is sometimes open to visitors for educational purposes.
Breakdown of the Viral Images:
Image 1: Shows a group of people wearing masks exiting a bomb shelter. This photo originally appeared in a 2012 blog post by Carl Willis, who documented his visit to the Semipalatinsk site in July of that year. The image was captioned “Experimental bomb shelter” in the blog, which includes several other photos from the same trip.
Image 2: Depicts individuals in protective suits and helmets exiting a tunnel. This picture was featured in an August 2021 article on a Kazakh government website, part of a photo exhibition marking 30 years since the site’s closure. The sign in the image is in Russian, clearly indicating the location is not in Pakistan.
Image 3: Shows people in white hazmat suits walking across a flat, grassy plain. This photo appeared in a 2015 ABC News article covering the opening of the Semipalatinsk test site to tourists. The article describes the landscape as a typical Kazakh steppe, not resembling the terrain around Kirana Hills.
Conclusion
The claim that these photos show recent U.S. inspections of a nuclear site in Pakistan is false. All three images predate the alleged incident and are from a well-documented nuclear site in Kazakhstan. They are being used out of context to fuel misinformation regarding the current geopolitical situation between India and Pakistan.
