Does This Video Show a Man Falling Into a Drain in Mumbai’s Borivali East? No!
We found that the incident dates back to August 2022 and is from Tamil Nadu's Hosur.
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A video of a man walking unsteadily and falling into what seems to be an open drain is going viral on the internet as a recent incident from Borivali East in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)
What is the truth?: Neither is this video recent nor is it from Maharashtra. The incident dates back to August 2022 and is from Tamil Nadu's Hosur.
How did we find out?: At first, we noticed that shop signs and signboards on the streets were written in Tamil.
Both the boards carried texts in Tamil.
(Source: Viral video/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
Next, we performed a keyword search in Tamil and came across a YouTube video uploaded on the official channel of Asianet Suvarna News.
The video was uploaded on 4 August 2022 and was titled, "An old man who fell into the drain while drunk; Video viral!."
The description of the video identified the location as Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Other sources: A report in Samayam published on 4 August 2022 said that the man was drunk and fell into a deep sewer while he was trying to cross the road.
The road was flooded due to the area receiving heavy downpour for about three hours.
The man was then rescued by the public and was taken to a government hospital for further treatment.
News18 had also uploaded the same video on their Twitter handle.
A report published in Tamil daily Maalaimalar added that the incident happened at the Bagalur Circle area of Hosur.
Geolocating the place: On closely looking at the signboard in the viral video, one can figure out that it says railway station.
Taking this as a hint and keeping Bagalur Circle as reference, we followed the trail of streets using street view option of Google Maps.
We came across a location which showed several similarities to the viral clip.
On comparing visuals from the viral video to pictures of the location as seen in Google Maps, we could conclude that the video was from Hosur.
(Swipe right to view all comparisons.)
A similar setting and the same shop signs as well as signboards can be seen in both images.
A similar setting and the same shop signs as well as signboards can be seen in both images.
A similar setting and the same shop signs as well as signboards can be seen in both images.
Conclusion: A video of a man walking unsteadily and falling into an open drain is an old video dating back to 2022 and is from Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
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