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| - Fact Check: 6-year-old video VIRAL as recent bridge collapse in Russia
Media outlets like the Express and the Kyiv Post also shared this old video as the recent accident.
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India Today Fact Check
This video dates back to October 2018 and shows an accident in Russia's Zabailkalsk region.
On Monday, April 8, a road bridge in Vyazma in Russia’s Smolensk region collapsed on railway tracks, killing a woman and injuring at least five people. This caused train traffic to halt and reportedly left about 8,000 households without gas as pipelines were also damaged.
In its aftermath, a shocking video of a bridge built over a railway track collapsing, allegedly, showing the Smolensk incident, was widely shared.
"In Russia, a bridge near Smolensk falls on a strategically important railway. Sad," claimed posts shared on X and Facebook.
International media outlets including the UK’s Express and Ukraine’s Kyiv Post featured the video and its screenshots in articles about a recent bridge collapse in Smolensk. The archives of such posts and articles can be seen here and here.
India Today Fact Check found that the video is at least six years old and unrelated to the recent accident.
OUR PROBE
Upon reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video, we came across this video shared on X on October 10, 2018. The Russian caption of the post indicated that the accident occurred in the Amur Oblast region of Russia.
Subsequent searches with relevant keywords led us to an Italian news report dated October 9, 2018. This report clarified that the incident occurred in the Zabailkalsk region of Russia, specifically over the Trans-Siberian railway. Hence, it became evident that the video footage was unrelated to any recent accident.
The April 8 accident and its video
We found a video of the site of the April 8 bridge collapse on the YouTube channel of the Associated Press. The video carried the watermark of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, confirming its authenticity.
A comparison between the sites of the recent bridge collapses and the viral video makes it clear that both areas are different. No goods carrier is visible under the debris in the video uploaded by the Associated Press.
Furthermore, multiple concrete slabs in between the railway tracks, looking like mini platforms, can be seen in the viral video. Whereas in the original collapse site, there are no such structures. It is also noteworthy, that the bridge seen collapsing in the viral had six pillars. But the bridge that collapsed on Monday had two pillars supporting it.
Therefore, it is evident that an old video was falsely shared as the recent bridge collapse in Russia's Smolensk.
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