A striking bridge photo (here, here and here) is making its rounds on social media, with the accompanying claim that it is located in Mumbai, India. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The bridge seen in this viral photograph is in Mumbai.
Fact: The bridge in the viral photo is actually known as the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge and is located in Qingdao, China. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To ascertain the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search. This led us to a video (here, here and here) where the viral photo seems to be a keyframe.
Posts (archive) associated with the video identified the bridge as the ‘Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge.’
Further search for visuals of this bridge led us to news reports (here, here and here) from when the bridge was inaugurated in China in 2011. Reputed news outlets, such as Time and DailyMail (archive), published photos of the ‘Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge.’ These images reveal the same four pillars with a distant single pillar as seen in the viral photo.
Additionally, we examined Google Earth for more evidence to confirm that the bridge in the viral photo is indeed the ‘Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge.’ This revealed a part of the bridge where you can see four pillars and, later, a tall single pillar, similar to the viral image.
Also, we discovered numerous videos of this bridge (here, here, here and here) posted on YouTube. In these videos, you can clearly see the four pillars and the single pillar as shown in the viral image. This evidence confirms that the bridge in the viral photo is indeed the ‘Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge’ and not a bridge from Mumbai.
Moreover, we found no news reports or credible online sources that reported the opening of a bridge in Mumbai that looks like the one in the photo.
To sum up, the bridge depicted in the viral photo is the ‘Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge’ located in China, not in Mumbai, India.
