Old Video of Bridge Collapsing in Jammu Falsely Shared as Incident From Gujarat

The video dates back to 2020 when heavy rainfall led to a bridge collapse in Jammu.

Fact-check : This video is of a bridge collapsing in Jammu and not Gujarat, as claimed.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video, showing a bridge collapsing and washing away in the running water, is doing the rounds on social media with a claim that it shows a bridge connecting Akkalkuwa, a town in Maharashtra, and Ankleshwar, a city in Gujarat.

This comes amid the heavy rainfall witnessed by Maharashtra and Gujarat. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued red alert in Gujarat and orange and yellow alerts in different parts of Maharashtra in the second week on July.

However, the video dates back to 2020 when a bridge in Jammu's Dharap village collapsed due to heavy rain. Due to heavy rainfall, a bridge in Gujarat's Chhota Udepur collapsed on 10 July 2022 but these visuals are unrelated to the incident.

CLAIM

The video was shared on social media with a claim that said, "अक्कलकुआ से अंकलेश्वर संपर्क टूटा"

[Translation: Akkalkuwa lost contact with Ankleshwar]

An archived version of the post can be seen here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Similar claims were shared here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We divided the video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on some of them using Google.

This led us to a video uploaded by a news agency Asian News International (ANI) on Twitter on 26 August 2020.

The tweet read stated that a portion of a bridge near Jammu's Gadigarh area collapsed due to the heavy rainfall.

We compared the viral video to ANI's video and found them to be the same visuals.

The comparison shows that both are videos are the same.

(Source: The Quint)

We also found reports by NDTV which carried a screenshot from the viral video and a report by Hindustan Times which carried the whole video, from August 2020.

The Quint reached out to Pallavi Sareen, a reporter from Jammu, who confirmed to us that this video is from August 2020 and shows a bridge collapsing in Jammu's Dharap village after heavy rainfall hit the area.

She added that the bridge was built in 2008 but it started weakening after the 'sand mafias' started stealing sand from under the bridge.

Her video report on a Jammu and Kashmir based news channel, The Straight Line, also stated that this bridge has still not been reconstructed after it collapsed in 2020.

Maharashtra and Gujarat are witnessing heavy rainfall since the first week of July 2022. Maharashtra has reported more than hundred deaths due to incessant rains. Since 1 June 2022, the death toll due to rainfall in Gujarat has went above 60.

Clearly, an old video from Jammu was shared with a false claim that it shows a bridge collapsing in Gujarat.

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