CLAIM
The Karnataka floods this year have claimed over 50 lives till now, while thousands have been evacuated. In this backdrop, a video of a bridge collapse went viral on social media claiming it to be of the Bijapur-Solapur bridge.
The claim with the video says “Bijapur Solapur bridge collapsed takali bridge.👆”
A platform named Dakshin News also carried the claim along the video.
WHAT IS THE TRUTH?
The video actually shows the collapse of a bridge over Vansadhara river in Odisha’s Gumuda. The bridge collapse took place in 2007.
WHAT WE FOUND
On breaking down the video into keyframes and conducting a reverse image search, The Quint came across the same video, which placed the incident in Odisha and said that it showed the Gumuda bridge breaking in a flood.
The earliest video that we found was uploaded in July 2011.
On researching further, we came across news reports about the bridge collapse, which happened in August 2007.
According to a PTI report, this happened when heavy rains lashed Odisha, leading to floods in six southern districts. At the time, road communication between Berhampur and Rayagada was also cut off following the collapse of the bridge over Vansadhara river at Gumuda.
A 2016 news report by The Times of India said that the 720-metre bridge over river Bansadhara at Gumuda was finally reopened to traffic in June 2016, confirming that the incident occurred in 2007.
Additionally, in the video, people can be heard speaking Oriya while recording the collapse of the bridge, which confirms that the incident actually happened in some part of Odisha.
FAKE NEWS RESURFACES
The video has been viral many times.
In 2017, it was viral as a bridge that collapsed in Bihar’s Katihar.
Many publications, including The Times of India, carried the video in 2017. TOI said the the bridge had collapsed due to heavy floods in the Mahananda river.
The same video was also viral in 2018 as well with a different claim and was circulated with the caption “Bhayandar old bridge fell down”, suggesting that it was from Maharashtra.
(The Quint had earlier reported that the video was of a bridge collapse in Bihar’s Katihar. The story has now been updated to reflect that the incident is actually from Odisha. Error is regretted.)
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