Video Shows Building on Fire in the Philippines, Not Sweden or France

The video shows a fire incident at an old post office building in Manila.

A video showing a huge building on fire is going viral on social media with two misleading claims.

The first claim: It states that Alcazar Library in Marseille, France was set ablaze during the recent protests in the country, which started after a 17-year-old boy was shot and allegedly killed by the police.

The second claim: Another claim states that Sweden's presidential palace "suddenly" caught fire.

• This comes after an Iraqi-born refugee burned Islam’s holy book, Qu'ran, outside Stockholm Central Mosque on 28 June

• He claimed that he was 'protecting Sweden from Islam'.

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

So, where is the video actually from?: The video dates back to May 2023 and shows a 100-year-old post office building in the capital of the Philippines on fire.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video and came across old videos and reports from the Philippines.

• We found a report from 22 May shared by the news agency Associated Press which carried a similar video to the viral video.

• We compared the two visuals and noticed similarities.

(Note: Please swipe to see all comparisons.)

• The report stated that on 22 May, a nearly 100-year-old historic post office building in Manila, Philippines caught massive fire.

• It also added that the fire started before midnight in the basement of the five-storey building and was brought under control the next morning after more than seven hours.

• We found more reports about the incident on Reuters, Hindustan Times and Cable News Network (CNN).

We checked the building on Google maps: We found a street view on Google maps near Manila Central Post Office and it matched the viral video.

What about the fire at France's library?: We found Alcazar Library (Bibliothèque l'Alcazar) in Marseille, France, on Google Maps and noticed that the architecture of the two buildings is totally different.

• We found no reports about fire at the library.

And the thing about Sweden's 'presidential palace'?: There is nothing known as the "presidential palace" in Sweden, however, we found two structures with a curvature in them - the Parliament House and the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

• The Manila Central Post Office building in the viral video had a curved building on two sides, but neither of the two buildings in Sweden had the same.

Conclusion: An old video from the Philippines showing a fire at a historic post office building is being passed off as a recent video from France and Sweden.

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