Fact-Check: Does This Video Show an Accident Between Two Electric Vehicles?

The video is from July 2013 in Moscow, Russia and showed gas cylinders exploding after a collision.

A viral video showing fumes in the air after what seems to look like an accident is going viral on the internet.

What are the users saying?: Internet users claimed that the incident occurred recently after two electric vehicles collided on a freeway. The claim goes on to say that the fires and blasts were caused by the burning of lithium batteries, which "cannot be easily extinguished".

(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

We also received the same claim on our WhatsApp tipline.

What is the truth?: This is an old video from 2013 which shows an accident from Moscow, Russia.

• The accident was between an Isuzu truck, carrying gas cylinders and a bus, which led to the explosion of 119 gas cylinders.

How did we find out?: We did a reverse image search on Google that led us to older and longer versions of this video.

• We found a video that helped us establish that the incident is from Russia. We spotted a commuter vehicle with Russian number plates.

• We also came across a dash cam recording of the incident with a date stamp of 13 July 2013.

• With a relevant keyword search in Russian, we came across a news report by RIA Novosti that mentioned 119 gas cylinders exploded in the back of an Isuzu truck on the Moscow Outer Ring Road, confirmed by the Metropolitan Police.

• The Isuzu truck collided with a bus. The driver of the truck was reported to be injured.

• The series of blasts that can be seen in the video were not caused by the burning of lithium batteries but due to the explosion of gas cylinders, as can be seen in this video.

• There was no mention of the vehicles being electric vehicles.

• The dash cam shows that the blast started at 17:58 PM in the evening and and the news reports mentioned that the fire was extinguished by 18:30 PM.

Conclusion: The viral video has falsely claimed that the accident was a collision between two electric vehicles. Whereas, this is an old video of a collision between a Isuzu truck and regular bus.

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