Old, Unrelated Visuals Used to Show Potholes, Huge Waves in Mumbai

While one video is old and does not show Bandra-Worli sea link, the other video, too, is not related to Mumbai.

Two different videos have gone viral with the claim that they show the current situation of Mumbai amid the heavy rainfall that the city is receiving. While one video shows vehicle movement being disrupted due to potholes, the other video shows huge waves over a sea link, claimed to be the Bandra-Worli sea link.

However, we found that none of the videos correspond to this year’s Mumbai rains. Let’s look at them one by one:

VIDEO 1

A video showing several potholes on a road is viral with the claim that it shows “vehicle suspensions testing machine installed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Mumbai.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Several social media users had suggested the the video is from China. Consequently, we searched on YouTube using keywords: “china potholes” and found several videos mentioning that the incident is from China.

Further, we noticed a logo at the bottom right of the viral video. We were able to identify that the logo was written in Chinese and loosely translates to “strong brother”.

We then typed “strong brother 123” in Chinese and got the text as “坚强的兄弟”. One can notice that some characters in this text (in bold) are the same as the one seen in the logo.

On conducting a keyword search with “强兄弟123”, we came across a video in which more similar characters can be seen.

We ran a keyword search again using keywords “小强兄弟123” and came across a website called Bilibili that had uploaded the video on 16 June. The said website had uploaded the video several times in June and July.

We also noticed that the drivers of the vehicles were not sitting to the right side of the vehicle, which is opposite of the driving rules followed in India. Although we can’t conclusively prove that the video is from China, but we can certainly verify that the video isn't from Mumbai.

VIDEO 2

Another video showing huge waves splashing a bridge/sea link has been shared with the claim that it shows the Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai. The video uploaded by Twitter user Suhail Raza had garnered over 30,000 views at the time of publishing the article.

The Quint received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp helpline.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

A user had commented on the video that it is from Lakshwadeep and not Mumbai. We also came across a YouTube video uploaded in August 2017 that mentioned that the video is from Minicoy island in Lakshwadeep.

Looking at the physical features of the said sea link and on comparing it with the Bandra-Worli sea link, we found that they are largely different in appearance.

The Quint, too, had debunked the viral video in 2017 as well when it was viral with the same claim. While we haven’t been able to independently verify whether the viral video is from Lakshwadeep, however, it’s not a recent video from Mumbai for sure.

Evidently, old and unrelated videos are being used to show the current situation of Mumbai due to the rains.

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