Video shows bridge deluged by floodwaters in Iran, not Pakistan
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 19, 2022 at 05:08
- 3 min read
- By AFP Pakistan
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"Indian Release Flood In River Chenab _ Flood From Kashmir," reads a Facebook post from August 1 written in English and Urdu.
"Recite Kalima (verses from Quran) and pray before Allah for this calamity. Stay safe everyone."
The Chenab river, which passes through India and Pakistan, often floods during monsoon rains in the summer months.
The video, viewed more than 5,400 times, has Urdu text superimposed which says that India released 300,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water into the Chenab river flowing through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir after ten hours of heavy rain.
In the video, a man off-camera says in Urdu: "Allah, I beg forgiveness from you. I am showing you live (footage). First, I may tell you that India has released 300,000 cusecs of water into the Chenab river.
"In Kashmir, there have been rainstorms for ten consecutive hours and this flood from Kashmir is going into the Chenab river."
Multiple Pakistani media reports have claimed that India discharged floodwaters into Pakistan's side of the Chenab river in July 2022, but AFP has not found any Indian reports of such discharges in the same month.
In June, New Delhi-based news agency ANI reported that Indian authorities had released water at the Salal Dam into the Chenab river following heavy rainfall.
India’s water resources ministry could not be reached for comment.
The same video was shared alongside a similar claim in Facebook posts here, here and here.
However, the video has been shared in a false context.
A reverse image search traced the video to reports about floods in Iran in January 2020.
A Facebook post shared on January 11, 2020 said the video showed flooding in Nikshahr in Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the video in the 2020 Facebook post (right):
The same video was published in a report about the floods published by Iranian media outlet Aparat on January 12, 2020.
The bridge in the footage corresponds to photos published by Iranian construction firm Shadab Company in 2019.
The floods caused massive economic losses in the province, Iran's Financial Tribune reported, listing Nikshahr as one of the towns affected.
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