Old video shows motorbike falling into a pothole in Sri Lanka, not India
- Published on June 16, 2025 at 09:50
- 3 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"What is the point of charging so much tax from Indians? Free swimming and adventure with hospital bills," reads part of an Instagram post shared on June 1, 2025.
The attached video shows two people riding on a motorcycle unexpectedly plunging into a water-filled pothole, and bystanders rushing to help them.
"Thanks to Nitin Gadkari for providing roads better than US standard," adds the post, referring to India's minister for road transportation and highways.
Gadkari has been criticised for repeatedly promising that India's roads would match or surpass the quality of roads in the United States (archived link).
The video was also shared alongside similar claims on Facebook and X posts.
"Everything is possible if Modi is there", read a comment on one of the post.
Another said: "The common people just pay taxes, and that money gets wasted in corruption."
India is hit by torrential rains and flash floods every year during the monsoon season, which is vital for agriculture, the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security. But the monsoon also brings destruction in landslides and floods (archived link).
According to the BBC, India's biggest cities flood every monsoon season causing roads to collapse, drains to overflow and overwhelming infrastructure (archived link).
"Experts blame rapid unplanned urbanisation, poor infrastructure and years of environmental neglect as the root causes of this problem," reads the BBC report.
The video circulating online, however, was not filmed in India.
Pothole in Sri Lanka
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to longer footage published on the verified Facebook account of Sri Lankan news outlet News First on September 19, 2023 (archived link).
Overlaid Sinhala-language text reads, "A water pipe burst, causing a daughter and father to face a horrific accident revealed by CCTV".
According to the video report, a man and his daughter were rescued after they fell into a 16-foot-deep water-filled pit while riding a motorcycle in the Gothatuwa area of Colombo.
The longer footage shows the pair being lifted out of the hole by bystanders.
The footage was also shared by local Sri Lankan news outlet Lankadeepa on YouTube, and was covered by The Sunday Times newspaper (archived here and here).
According to The Sunday Times report, the accident occurred in front of the Water Supply and Drainage Board office in Gothatuwa.
Elements of the video also correspond to Google Street View imagery of the area (archived link).
AFP previously debunked another false claims that spread during the monsoon season here.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
