A video (here, here, and here) of lightning strikes on a mountain is doing the rounds on social media, claiming that the incident had taken place recently in a Shiva Temple in Himachal Pradesh, where lightning strikes every 12 years. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Viral video shows a Shiva temple in Himachal Pradesh getting hit by lightning strike.
Fact: This video shows lightning striking the ‘Volcan del Fuego’ volcano in Guatemala which happend on 28 April 2024. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on the internet using a few keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to news reports (here, here, and here) on this incident from May 2024.
Reportedly, the video shows a volcano named ‘Volcan del Fuego’ in Guatemala that was struck by lightning while it was erupting. This incident (here and here) happened on 28 April 2024 near the city of Antigua, and it contradicts the viral claim that this video is from Himachal Pradesh.
Additionally, a quick search online revealed that the Shiva temple being referred to in the viral claim is known as Bijli Mahadev temple. It is located in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu. To find more details about this temple and the lightning phenomenon, click here, here, and here.
To sum up, the viral video does not show the Bijili Mahadev temple in Himachal Pradesh getting hit by lighting. The viral video is from Guatemala.
