Old Video Goes Viral as Elephants Running to Safety Before Landslide Hit Wayanad

This video predates the Wayanad landslides.

Fact-check: An old video of a herd of elephants walking away from the forest is being falsely linked to the Wayanad landslides.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video showing a herd of elephants stepping out of a jungle is going viral to claim that this scene is from Wayanad, Kerala and shows the animals "running to safety" before the landslides hit the area.

You can view an archive of the post here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(Archives of such posts can be found here and here.)

What's the truth?: This video dates back to at least January and is unrelated to the recent landslides.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video on Google and came across a video shared on Instagram.

This was shared on 12 January, which predates the landslides that happened on 30 July in Wayanad.

This video was shared in January 2024.

(Source: IG/Screenshot)

• We also noticed '@wayanadan' watermark on the video and taking a cue, we found the same video on this account on Instagram.

• This too, was shared on 12 January and the caption carried hashtags including 'Wayanad'.

• We also reached out to the user, who clarified that this video is from a village named Meppadi in Kerala and is unrelated to the Wayanad landslides, as it was recorded in January.

• The user also said that such instances are common and there wasn't anything unusual about elephants crossing the roads.

Conclusion: Although the context of the viral video in unclear, it is definitely unrelated to the recent Wayanad landslides.

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