Lighthouse Journalism came across a video where vehicles on the street were seen being driven on a road full of potholes. It was claimed that the video was from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The video also consists of a voice over that starts with, ‘Welcome to India’. During the investigation we found out that the video is not from Lucknow but from China and was taken in the year 2020.
Claim:
X user Rumaisa Anam shared the video on her profile.
Other users too are sharing the video with the same claim.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by observing the video first. We found a few sign boards in the video in a foreign language, which looked more like Chinese.
We found the video on redd.tube.
We found the video to be uploaded over 4 months ago.
We also found the ‘AndroVid’ written on the video. which is a video editor application.
We found the video uploaded on YouTube channel Daily Content.
The title said, ‘Crazy big potholes in China that are like craters’. The video was uploaded in 2020.
The video was similar and the vehicles seen in the video too were the same as those seen in the YouTube link.
We also found the same video on Cinema tv, which mentioned that heavy rain was the cause of some major road damage in China.
We also found a video on Videoman.
The title of the video was, ‘vehicles pass over two huge potholes’.
The description said, “Drivers pass over two large puddles filled with water in a Chinese city. The vehicles bounce to great heights and fall hard on the asphalt.”
We also found a video posted on a YouTube channel, ‘CarsWithPotholes’.
This video too was posted in 2020.
It was hence clear that the video was taken in 2020 and was from China.
Conclusion: Video of cars hitting and jumping over potholes on the street is from 2020 and not from India. Viral claim is false.
