As India battles a global pandemic, with the highest single-day surge of confirmed cases on Sunday, fake news, which is ever-present in your WhatsApp forwards, still continued to spread.
On Saturday night and Sunday, parts of North-India received heavy rail-fall, with it also affecting crop season in several rural areas.
A video claiming to be from the storm started going viral shortly after. Claiming to be from Pendra in Chhattisgarh, the video showed hailstorms in a field, producing the same visual effect as someone tossing stones into a body of water.
The video which went viral on WhatsApp was shared on Twitter by an IAS officer, who is currently posted in Kabirdham in Chhattisgarh.
Today at Pendra, Chhattisgarh. pic.twitter.com/XMPVXuyuLB — Awanish Sharan (@AwanishSharan) April 26, 2020
Some were left really amused by the video.
Whatt.. ! At first look it seemed like someone is firing into the water! Is this normal?? — Pankhuri Pathak पंखुड़ी पाठक پنکھڑی (@pankhuripathak) April 26, 2020
Whats it? A hailstorm..?? — WatchMan (@Faller18) April 26, 2020
However, the video is fake. Dating from a few days ago, the video was uploaded on YouTube on April 23rd, four days before India's hail storm. The video tags the location as Cao Bang in Vietnam. It was also shared on Twitter by a different user with the same location, much before India's storm.
Hailstorm in Cao Bang, Viet Nam pic.twitter.com/eriQBSIfsk — KaptanHindustan (@GautamTrivedi_) April 24, 2020
A different video uploaded on YouTube on April 26 by a travel channel, showing 'Hail in Cao Bang,' with 8-hour long footage of the aftermath of hail in the area, included a clip of the viral video in that footage.
A local Vietnamese publication also reported on the story on April 24th, showing a clip of the video.
However, after an investigation, Fact Crescendo found out that the original footage was shot in Gahauli village in Nepal and was uploaded on TikTok on 18 April.
Correction: We had earlier reported that the video is from Vietnam. We deeply regret the error and have corrected it.
