Amid the completion of several flyover projects and ongoing works on National highways in Jammu and Kashmir (here, here and here), a photo (here, here and here), has gone viral on social media claiming to show a flyover from the Jammu National Highway connecting the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Let’s uncover the truth behind this image.
Claim: A photo of a bridge from the mountains showing the National Highway in Jammu and Kashmir.
Fact: The bridge in the viral photo is located in the Hoengseong District of Gangwon-do Province, South Korea. While there are several bridge projects currently underway in Jammu and Kashmir as part of the National Highway expansion, this specific photo has no connection to those projects. Therefore, the claim is MISLEADING.
To verify the authenticity of the viral photo, we conducted a reverse image search on Google. The results revealed that this photo has previously gone viral under various claims, including being associated with countries like Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Syria.
Through extensive investigation using advanced tools, we found that the photo was first uploaded by the user ‘jdting‘ on 1 August 2007. It was shared on Panoramio, a platform for geo-tagged photo linked to Google Maps, which was completely shut down on 4 November 2016.
Archived versions of the Panoramio site were reviewed, and a snapshot from 10 October 2016, was discovered linking the photo to its original context. The photo was described as being captured in South Korea, at a bridge located in Hoengseong District, Gangwon-do Province. Coordinates accompanying the description identified the exact location of the bridge on Google Maps.
Further exploration revealed a Korean commercial site, Woojung 365, which sells an expressway coupon featuring the same bridge shown in the viral image. The description on the site, translated from Korean, identifies the bridge as “Yeongdong Hongseong Bridge,” matching the location we had pinpointed earlier.
Additionally, we found a drone video from the YouTube channel Meritz, a Korean company, uploaded on 1 June 2021. In the video, the bridge appears at 2:56, closely resembling the photo shared in the viral claim. While there are several bridge projects currently underway in Kashmir (here and here), this photo is unrelated to the National Highway of Jammu and Kashmir.
To sum up, an old photo of a bridge from South Korea is shared as the National Highway in Jammu and Kashmir.
