Video Falsely Shared As Rocks Falling from Sky During Recent Tonga Volcano
The Claim
The video shows rocks falling from the sky as the recent Tonga volcano erupted.
News posted on
Emerging story
Social media accounts have recently shared a video claiming rocks fell from the sky onto cars as a result of Tonga’s volcanic eruption.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s team investigated the claim and found it misleading. The video is outdated, and it does not show rocks or stones falling from the sky. Rather, it was shared by Romanian media outlets on May 28, 2019, when hail during a storm that hit Romania’s north fell on the cars in the city of Zalău in Sălaj County.
Media outlets reported that the hail storm broke and damaged many cars.
Running the license plate number on one of the cars in the video against the registration system in Romania, which shows the EU flag along with the first letter of the name of the county in which the vehicle was registered, Misbar’s team found the license plate to be identical with the one shown in the video. This means the accident did, in fact, take place in Sălaj County.
The claim started to circulate following a volcanic eruption in Tonga, near the Pacific Ocean, on Jan. 15, leaving huge damages to homes and cutting the only underwater power cable connecting the country with the outside world.
The video itself falsely circulated earlier as rocks and stones falling from the sky in France, and Misbar’s team fact-checked the misleading news then.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
