Old Photo From Philippines Passed Off as Mumbai’s Mithi River

While the Sabarmati Riverfront photo is an actual one, the other is not Mithi river in Mumbai but the Philippines.

A set of two images is being shared on the internet claiming to show the “tale of two cities” – Ahmedabad and Mumbai, one led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the other by the Shiv Sena-led coalition. The picture of Sabarmati Riverfront is a clean and picturesque one, while Mithi river in Mumbai is shown filled with garbage.

However, The Quint's WebQoof team found that while the Sabarmati Riverfront image is an actual photograph from 2013, the other picture, which claims to be of Mithi river, is, in reality, a photograph from the Philippines’ Manila in 2008.

CLAIM

Several social media users, including BJP’s Priti Gandhi, shared the photos.

Gandhi claims that while Gujarat spent Rs 1,400 crore on the Sabarmati Riverfront, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) spent Rs 1,000 crore+ on the Mithi river in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

The archived links of the posts can be accessed here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Upon a reverse image search on the Sabarmati Riverfront image, we found the original image in a photo story article by The Economic Times published on 18 November 2013.

Next, we ran a reverse image search on the other picture claimed to be of the Mithi river in Mumbai.

We found the image on Shutterstock, a platform for stock images, and it is from Manila in the Phillippines, clicked by Antonio V Oquias, taken in 2008.

The caption read, “A river of garbage prevents the flow of water on January 6, 2008 in Manila, Philippines. Poverty and garbage disposal are major issues in the Philippines.”

We also found the image on Alamy, a stock photography company.

We also found the image in a BBC article titled “A simple online system that could end plastic pollution” and the picture has been credited to Getty Images.

Clearly, an old photo from Manila has been passed off by social media users as that of Mithi river in Maharashtra.

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