English, Fake News
 

A video of a mass hysteria incident from a Nepali school is falsely attributed to Andhra Pradesh.

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A video of school students displaying abnormal behaviour is being shared across social media with the claim that the incident happened in Andhra Pradesh. In the video, we can see a few students shouting and acting in a perceivably unusual way as the staff and other students run around in a panic. It is being said that the school was once used as a storage area for COVID-19 bodies and also that there is a graveyard near the school. We fact-check this claim through this article. 

Claim: This incident of school children behaving abnormally happened in a school in Andhra Pradesh, which was once used to store COVID-19 bodies.

Fact: The incident seen in the viral video took place at Bhubaneshwari High School in Nepal. Reportedly, this was the case of mass hysteria or conversion disorder among students. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.

To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on a few of its keyframes, which led us to a few Facebook posts (here and here) from June 2024 that contained similar visuals as the viral video. According to these posts, this incident happened at Bhubaneswari School located in Sigas, Baitadi.

Taking this as a hint, we performed a keyword search online, which led us to news reports (here, here, and here) that contained visuals similar to those in the viral video. 

As per these news reports from Nepal, this incident took place at Bhuvaneshwari School in Sigas Rural Municipality-5, Baitadi, Nepal. Reportedly, the students were experiencing mass hysteria or conversion disorder while this incident happened.

Mass hysteria (here and here) is a Psychosocial health problem in which a group of people has a shared experience of ‘unusual and uncharacteristic behaviours, thoughts and feelings, or health symptoms.’

The staff and students of Bhubaneshwari School told the media that such a problem was seen “in the girls for a long time (read this and this) has affected their studies. Some girls of school age are showing signs of sudden tremors, rolling on the ground, screaming, convulsions, etc. Day after day, when a group of teenage girls show such symptoms together, the environment of the school has become affected.”

However, none of these news reports mentioned that the school building was once used to store COVID-19 bodies or that there was a graveyard located next to it. We further looked up the school on Google Maps and found that the school roof colours match the one seen in the viral video. This makes it clear that the viral video was shot at Bhubaneshwari School, Sigas, Baitadi, Nepal.

To sum up, a video from Nepal is being falsely shared as visuals of school children in Andhra Pradesh displaying abnormal behaviour.

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