Video shows man rescued in India in 2022, not during Cyclone Mocha in Bangladesh in May 2023
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 1, 2023 at 10:19
- 4 min read
- By Qadaruddin SHISHIR, AFP Bangladesh
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"Still want to go to watch Mocha? This is the consequence of someone who went to (the shore) to watch Mocha. So do not take everything lightly," reads the Bengali-language caption of a video shared on Facebook here on May 14.
It shows various clips of a man in the sea who is struggling to swim back to shore as he is pummelled by strong waves. He is eventually saved by another man with a buoyancy ring, and they are pulled back to safety.
The video, which has been viewed more than 600 times, circulated as Cyclone Mocha made landfall in southeastern Bangladesh and neighbouring Myanmar, packing winds of up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) per hour, in the biggest storm to hit the Bay of Bengal in over a decade (archived link).
While officials in Bangladesh told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, junta authorities in Myanmar said 145 people had been killed during the storm (archived link).
The Dhaka Tribune newspaper had reported that despite warnings from the Bangladesh government to stay away from the shoreline, many people still went to beaches and coastal areas to "experience the extreme weather" (archived link).
Similar videos were also viewed hundreds of times elsewhere on Facebook here and here.
The video, however, does not show someone who was swept out to sea during Cyclone Mocha.
Rescue in Digha, India
Keyword and reverse image searches in Google led to a longer, higher-resolution version of the video uploaded to YouTube here on August 14, 2022 (archived link).
The video's Bengali-language headline reads: "A tourist was swept away from the guard wall in Digha by a tidal wave. viralvideo#dighaseabeach."
Digha is a coastal town in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal (archived link).
Bengali is used in both Bangladesh and parts of India, including West Bengal (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the video shared in the false post (left) and the video published on YouTube (right):
At the YouTube video's 2:00 mark, a group of people wearing orange shirts can be seen pulling the man described as a "tourist" to shore. The words "Disaster Management & Civil Defence West Bengal" are written on the back of their shirts (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video used in the false post (left) and the video published on YouTube (right), with the words on the shirts highlighted by AFP:
What appears to be a park can be seen at the 4:44 mark of the YouTube video, with features that match those of a shoreside park in Digha as seen in an image from Google Maps (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the park as seen in the YouTube video (left) and the same park seen on the Google Maps image (right), with matching features highlighted by AFP:
Similar videos were also used in reports on the YouTube channels of the Indian newspaper Sangbad Pratidin here and Indian news channel Kanak News here (archived links here and here).
Both videos were uploaded on August 14, 2022 and their headlines say the rescue occurred in Digha.
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