Video of billboard falling on commuters in Karachi falsely linked to Chennai - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 26, 2020
A post with a video showing a huge billboard falling on commuters due to strong winds coupled with heavy rain is being widely shared across all social media platforms with the claim that the video shows an incident that took place on the Poonamallee highway road in Chennai. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Billboard falling on commuters due to strong winds coupled with heavy rain on Poonamallee highway road in Chennai.
Fact: The video actually shows an incident of billboard falling on motorcyclists in Karachi, Pakistan three months ago. There are many news reports of the same incident. This video has nothing to do with Chennai. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Simple YouTube search with keywords ‘billboard falling on commuters’ led us to three months old Pakistan based news videos which carried images similar to the one in the post. According to one such news video,  these visuals show a billboard falling on commuters in Karachi injuring two motorcyclists. Another news video which says the same can be seen here.
Further google search with relevant keywords led us to few news articles which reported the incident. These articles carried images similar to the visuals of the video in the post. Even these articles reported that this incident happened in Karachi. Another news article which reported the same can be read here. With all these, we can conclude that the incident did not happen in Chennai.
FACTLY debunked when the same video went viral a couple of months ago with a different claim.  This fact-check story can be read here.
In the light of cyclone Nivar, a very severe cyclonic storm as described by IMD,  posts like these are being shared on social media platforms with misleading claims.
To sum it up, video of billboard falling on commuters in Karachi, Pakistan is falsely shared as that from Chennai.