A TWITTER handle, Eons Intelligence, with the user ID @eonsintelligenc on Tuesday, November 9, shared a video of a collapsed mining site with the caption the incident happened in Zamfara state.
“Just In: Over 100 miners are suspected of having been buried under the rubble in Zamfara gold mine collapse. Rescue efforts in progress,” the caption of the video, which has over 11,000 views read.
The claim:
The video shows a collapsed mine site in Zamfara State, with miners buried under the rubble.
The findings:
Checks by The FactCheckHub show that the video emanated from an artisanal gold mine collapse in the Niger Republic and not Zamfara State.
A Google reverse image search on the video showed it surfaced online on Monday, November 8, and this was a day before Eons Intelligence shared it.
Similarly, the news of the gold mine collapse, killing several persons in Southern Niger, was reported in multiple media like Reuters, Aljazeera.
Also, the image in the report by Washington Post is from the same scene as the video.
The verdict:
Video of a mining site where some people were believed to have been trapped is not from Zamfara but the Niger Republic, thereby claiming FALSE.
'Niyi worked with The ICIR as an Investigative Reporter and Fact-checker from 2020 till September 2022. You can shoot him an email via [email protected]. You can as well follow him on Twitter via @niyi_oyedeji.