No, this video does not show Cyclone Fani hitting India’s east coast

This article is more than one year old.
Published on May 8, 2019 at 10:30
3 min read
By AFP India

A video has been viewed more than half a million times in Facebook posts which claim it shows Cyclone Fani hitting the east coast of India in May 2019. The claim is false; the misleading video has been edited from original footage which has circulated online for more than two years in reports about a different storm, Cyclone Vardah, which hit India December 12, 2016.

The misleading footage has been posted repeatedly on social media, for example here on Facebook where it has been shared more than 15,000 times and viewed more than half a million time since it was uploaded May 3, 2019.

The post contains a 6 minutes 59 seconds long video, which consists of three different clips showing grainy footage of extreme weather.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

Screenshot of the misleading post

The Bengali-language caption translates to English as: “The scene as Cyclone Fani strikes in the Indian state of Orissa.”

Similar posts have been shared on Facebook here and on YouTube here.

Cyclone Fani hit India’s east coast on May 3, 2019, as described here in an AFP report.

But the misleading footage does not show Cyclone Fani -- it has been edited from three different clips, all of which were originally posted online in 2016.

A Yandex reverse image search found that the first 12 second section of the misleading video has been taken from this original video published on December 12, 2016 on YouTube.

The original video’s caption says the footage shows cyclone Vardha in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in December, 2016.

Here are screenshots of that video (R) and the video in the misleading post (L) put side by side for comparison:

A similar video was published on December 12, 2016, by a multiple Indian media websites in their reports about Cyclone Vardah, for example by India Today here, and by NDTV here.

AFP reported on Cyclone Vardah slamming into southern India on December 12, 2016, here.

The next section of the misleading video from 12 seconds to 2 minutes 46 seconds shows a vehicle on its side, being buffeted by fierce winds.

A Yandex reverse image search found the original -- better quality -- video was published on December 12, 2016 here on YouTube, with a caption that says the footage depicts cyclone Vardah.

The video is headline: “Cyclone Vardah blows away stationary Tcs Bus on OMR Chennai”.

Below is a comparison of screenshots showing the video from the misleading post (L) beside this Youtube video from December 12, 2016 (R):

The third section of the video, which shows wind and rain lashing parked cars, can be seen in this footage which was published on YouTube on December 12, 2016.

A screenshot of the 2016 video is shown below (R), next to a screenshot from the same point of the misleading video (L):

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