A video is being shared on social media (here, here, and here) claiming to show school children in Madhya Pradesh crossing a river using a polystyrene (thermocol) box. The post also claims that after crossing the river, these students walk around 2 km to reach their school. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The video shows students in Madhya Pradesh crossing a river using a polystyrene box to reach their school.
Fact: The viral video dates back to September 2021 and shows an incident from Ogan Komering Ilir Regency, South Sumatra, Indonesia. It features three elementary school children using a polystyrene box to cross a river on their way to SDN 1 Kuala 12 in Tulung Selapan District. The video has no connection to Madhya Pradesh or India. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to multiple Indonesian media reports from September 2021 featuring the same viral video (here, here). According to these reports, the incident took place in Ogan Komering Ilir Regency, South Sumatra, Indonesia. The video shows three boys in elementary school uniforms using a piece of polystyrene to cross a river. This confirms that the viral video has no connection to Madhya Pradesh or India.
According to these reports (here, here, and here), the children were on their way to SDN 1 Kuala 12, located in Tulung Selapan District. Hartoni, the head of Kuala Sungai Dua Belas Village, mentioned that such scenes are common in the area, as children often use polystyrene boxes to cross the river in place of boats to reach school.
We checked whether any such incident occurred in India and found news reports (here, here, and here) from 2023 about a similar case in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, where young children were seen using polystyrene sheets to cross a river on their way to school. But this particular viral video is unrelated to India.
To sum up, a video of Indonesian school students crossing a river on polystyrene is falsely shared as that of Madhya Pradesh.
