Fact-Check: Image of an Expressway in China Shared as One From India
The image is of the Weiyuan-Wudu Expressway in Northwest China's Gansu Province in China.
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An image of an expansive highway is being shared as National Highway (NH) 44 that runs from Srinagar to Kanyakumari in India.
What are users saying?: The users are claiming that the image is of NH 44 in Jammu and Kashmir and attributing its development to PM Narendra Modi with the hashtag #ModiHaiTohMumkin hai.
(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)
What is the truth?: The highway image is not of the National Highway 44 in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
The image is of the Weiyuan-Wudu Expressway in Northwest China's Gansu Province that opened in 2020.
The total length of the expressway is 234 kms.
How did we find out?: We conducted a reverse Google image search on the viral image and came across a page named Caixin Global.
The page had published a photo story on the "China Has Big Plans for Highway Expansion."
On slide 8 of the photo story, the same image as the viral image with the caption, "The Weiyuan-Wudu Expressway in Northwest China's Gansu province opened to traffic in 2020."
They credited the image to the Visual China Group (VCG).
We drew a comparison between the viral image and the Caixin Global image and found similarties.
(Source: Facebook/Caixin Global/Altered by The Quint)
Using relevant keywords, we searched on China's search engine Baidu and came across two articles that further verified our research.
An article that was published on 8 November 2020 noted that transportation development in the form of Weiyuan airport would make life easier in the province and carried the same image.
Further, we also found a People.China report that was published on 2 January 2020 about the press conference that was held by the Provincial Department of Transportation on 31 December 2019 to inaugurate the Longnan section of the Weiyuan-Wudu expressway.
It mentioned that the Longnan section of the expressway is 133.4 kms long.
(Source: People.China/Screenshot)
National Highway 44: NH 44 is India's longest highway which connects the North to the South corners of the country.
The highway passes through Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and is 4,112 kilometres long.
A tunnel, known as the T-5 tunnel streching across 870 meters at Panthyal in Ramban district's Ramsu area in Jammu and Kashmir was opened for commuters in May 2023.
Conclusion: The image is being falsely circulated as NH 44 in Jammu and Kashmir. It is of the The Weiyuan-Wudu Expressway in Northwest China's Gansu province.
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