Prothom Alo fact check
Viral video claims 2023 launch fire at Dhaka’s Sadarghat to be recent
Following a series of recent fire incidents across the country, a video of a launch on fire on the Buriganga River at Dhaka’s Sadarghat has been widely circulated on social media.
The captions accompanying the video claim: “Now a horrific fire at a launch in Dhaka’s Sadarghat, fires seem to have taken over the country.”
Indeed, Bangladesh witnessed several major fires in the last few days.
On Wednesday, 16 people were killed in a blaze that broke out at a garment factory and a chemical warehouse in Shialbari of Dhaka’s Mirpur.
Later, on Friday, another fire erupted at a factory in the Chattogram Export Processing Zone (EPZ), followed by a devastating fire at the cargo village of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Saturday.
Soon after these incidents, on Sunday, a video began circulating on social media showing a launch on fire in a river, shared under the headline: “Terrible fire breaks out at a launch in Dhaka’s Sadarghat.”
Links: [here], [here], [here], [here], [here], [here]
However, verification shows that the video is not recent. A key-frame analysis using the InVID tool and subsequent reverse image searches reveal that the footage actually dates back to 30 June 2023, when a fire broke out on a vessel named MV Mayur-7 docked at Sadarghat in the capital.
At the time, mainstream media outlets reported the incident, stating that the Dhaka–Chandpur bound launch Mayur-7 caught fire around 11:00 am while moored at pontoon No. 22 at Lalkuthi Ghat. Thirteen firefighting units from the Fire Service were deployed to bring the blaze under control.
According to Fire Service and Civil Defence media officer Anwar Hossain, the vessel was docked and had no passenger on board when the fire broke out, which started on the second floor of the launch.
No news reports from credible media sources indicate that any launch fire has occurred at Sadarghat in recent days.
That means, the claim that a launch recently caught fire at Sadarghat is false. The video circulating on social media is old footage from the 2023 incident involving the MV Mayur-7.