The images are of two events that occurred in different locations and on different dates and reflect a pattern of misinformation and clickbait.
It is false that two photos depicting what is supposedly the same accident are from the same incident and that this one “just happened” and left 34 dead, as stated in the text accompanying a post shared on Facebook . The images are from two different events, are not current, and are from different countries.
“National mourning has just occurred, a massive accident [ sic ] has left 34 dead,” is all that the text accompanying the photos says. In the top image, you can see what appears to be a yellow bus crushed by a truck, with firefighters working at the scene surrounded by people. In the photo below, several people watch a burning bus that is crossed in the middle of a multi-lane highway.
The first comment leaves a link that, in theory, leads to a video with more details about the accident. But in reality, it leads to a website that talks about a supposed weight-loss remedy.
Honduras and Venezuela
A reverse image search on Yandex of the photo of the yellow bus reveals that the crash actually occurred in Honduras in February 2017, more than seven years ago. Fox News covered the incident, which left 15 dead , and the caption of the photo illustrating the story, which is of the same incident but taken from a different angle, provides the name of the person who took it: Fernando Antonio, for the American news agency AP .
A search of the photo section of that outlet revealed the photograph used in the post circulating on social media to announce the alleged accident that “just occurred.” The description reads: “Emergency personnel responded to an accident involving a cargo truck and a bus on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Sunday, February 5, 2017.”
“The cargo truck crashed into the bus on the highway outside the Honduran capital on Sunday, killing more than a dozen people, authorities said,” it added.
As for the second image, which shows a burning bus, a reverse image search on Google Lens returns several posts that place the photo on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in mid-December 2023. That’s eight months ago. According to reports, at least 30 people died .
While the Facebook post doesn’t specify where the incident occurred, it’s logical that the “massive accident that left 34” dead would be the same.
As for the link that supposedly leads to the video showing the accident, it opens a website that offers a supposed weight-loss remedy.
At elDetector, we ‘ve verified posts that falsely reported accidents and directed readers to click on a link that would take them to the full information, but instead directed them to an unrelated website. This is what’s known as clickbait , and its purpose is to attract visitors to a website through eye-catching text. These visits can be converted into revenue.
Conclusion
It’s false that the two photographs shared together, which show two traffic accidents, are from the same incident that “just happened” and left 34 dead, as one social media post claims. One of the images is from a crash in Honduras in 2017, and the other is from an accident in Venezuela in late 2023, so both are out of context . Read here how we choose and assign our labels in elDetector.
