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| - Fact Check: Not tropical storm Hilary's effect, these are film sets and rides at Universal Studios
The first video shows a simulated earthquake experience in Universal Studios. The second video is from the set of a Steven Spielberg movie.
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India Today Fact Check
These videos are from Universal Studios Hollywood and don't portray the effects of the tropical storm at all.
Tropical storm Hilary unleashed furious flash floods east and west of Los Angeles in California, US, on August 20. In its aftermath, several videos circulating on social media claimed to show wreckage caused by the tropical storm.
In this story, we shall fact-check two such videos. Both videos are actually from different parts of Universal Studios Hollywood, a film studio and theme park in the San Fernando Valley area of California. They have nothing to do with the storm.
Flooded subway
This video purportedly shows water gushing onto the platform of a metro station in Los Angeles. Sharing the video on Twitter, a person wrote, “BREAKING: The LA metro system is flooding,” alongside hashtags for “Hurricane Hillary”, “Los Angeles”, and “California”. The archived version of the post can be seen here.
We noticed people responding to one such tweet, pointing out that the footage was from a studio tour in Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Taking a cue from this, we searched on YouTube and found several videos resembling the viral one.
”Earthquake! Universal Studios Tour On-Ride Experience POV w/ Fire, Water and Disasters,” read the title of one such video.
The video showed a train moving through an underground tunnel, with various disasters like fires, earthquakes, and floods taking place on the station platforms. At the floods section of the ride, we noticed several similarities with the viral clip.
A visual comparison between the viral video and the YouTube video can be seen here.
According to a report by Inside Universal, the Earthquake segment of the Studio Tour is situated within Stage 50 of the studio.
The earthquake experience simulates an 8.3 magnitude earthquake occurring inside a San Francisco subway station.
The Earthquake attraction has made appearances in select films and TV shows, including "The Great Los Angeles Earthquake" (1990), "Beverly Hills Cop III" (1993), "Seaquest DSV" (1993), and "Bones" (2009).
Photographs taken within Stage 50 of the studio tour are also accessible on Google Maps.
It is hence clear that the video in question is not related to the tropical storm.
Plane crash
The second video shared on social media showed a plane’s wreckage, several destroyed cars, and a wrecked home. Sharing the video on Twitter, people claimed tropical storm Hilary caused a plane crash in Long Beach.
“BREAKING: A plane has just crash landed in Long Beach, CA as a result of Hurricane Hilary and the 5.5 earthquake. Y’all stay safe out there,” wrote a person on Twitter while sharing the video. The archived version of one such post can be seen here.
The video in question is one that India Today debunked earlier this year when it was falsely shared as a plane crash in Nepal.
The video shows the location of Steven Spielberg's movie “War of the Worlds”, released in 2005. It is located at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. The official website of Universal Studios also lists this location of “War of the Worlds” as part of its studio tour. We also managed to geolocate the site on Google Maps.
It is adjacent to the iconic "Psycho House" featured in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller “Psycho”.
We also couldn’t find any credible reports of a plane crash attributed to tropical storm Hilary in Long Beach, California. Regardless, it is clear that the video in question is from the sets of the Hollywood movie "War of the Worlds." It bears no relation to tropical storm Hilary.
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