Does a viral image prove that a facility in Northern Pakistan experienced a radiation leak shortly after midnight on May 11, 2025? No, that's not true: What was described as an official government confirmation in posts on social media contained multiple inconsistencies and spelling mistakes, strongly pointing to forgery. The website of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which the "memo" claimed to have informed about the leak, didn't show any public announcements about the supposed leak, as of this writing.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published on May 13, 2025. It opened:
🚨 Govt of Pakistan confirms a radiation in Northern Pakistan. Reosen is Kirana hills 🫡 #Pakistan #radiation
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The "document" opened with a self-conflicting marking saying it's both "confidential" (thus, meant for limited access) and prepared for "immediate release" (thus, meant to be unrestricted for the general public).
The timing of the supposed incident -- a key detail of the said "report" -- was described in nonexistent terms. In the military time format (archived here), one day is divided into 24 hours but the time between midnight and 1 am is expressed as 00 h XX min, not "24-55 hours".
No Pakistani government website (archived here) lists the official who was described in the "document" as the main point of contact about the situation.
Furthermore, the page was filled with multiple spelling mistakes, which is highly unusual for official correspondence:
:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
Last but not least, the "memo" stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency (archived here) was formally notified "under bilıkeral togical incident framework" about the supposed leak, but a Google search across the organization's website for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not produce a public confirmation. The only search result (archived here) mentioned Pakistan as an IAEA member, not in the context of a supposed recent incident in May 2025.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) for the period between the named date of the "incident" and this writing did not show credible reports corroborating the claim.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Pakistan are here.
