Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
A retaining wall collapse in Nepal’s Mugling after a 5.2-magnitude earthquake
Fact
The video actually shows the collapse of a retaining wall in Bolombolo Antioquia, Colombo
A video allegedly capturing a moment when an under-construction retaining wall collapsed following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Mugling of Nepal is going viral on TikTok. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
TikTok user @roysurendrar100 posted a video showing a retaining wall collapsing and a panic-stricken voice yelling, “Allah Hu.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Today in Mugling. Earthquake in Nepal 5.6-Richter.” The video claims that the landslide occurred in Mugling, Nepal. Mugling is a famous settlement along Prithvi Highway in Chitwan district. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on April 6 has garnered 476 likes, seven people have shared it and 10 users have commented on it.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took several keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on them. The result led us to a Spanish article published on Elespectador.com, an online portal of a Colombian newspaper. The article was carrying images resembling the frames from the viral video. We checked the article with the help of google translate and found that the article showed the collapse of a mountain in Bolombolo of Antioquia in Colombia.
The article published on March 14 also confirmed that the tragedy occurred on March 12, 2023 on the road connecting the southwest of Antioquia with the township of Bolombolo, Antioquia, when a part of the mountain collapsed on the highway where an anti-landslide slope was being constructed.
Further, we found a video published on the YouTube channel named Gen Global Events News. The video footage matched the viral video. On checking the video, we found the video actually shows an under-construction retaining wall collapsing at Copa Pacifica work site in Balombolo Antioquia, Colombia. We also found a video on YouTube Channel named extremeweather which matched the viral video.
We also checked for the latest earthquakes recorded by the earthquake monitoring and research centre and found that an earthquake measuring 5.2-magnitude on the Richter scale struck Dolakha district on April 1. However, we didn’t find any reports about damage due to the earthquake.
Thus, our findings showed that the video showed the collapse of an anti-landslide slope in Balombolo Antioquia, Colombia.
Conclusion
The video claiming to show the moment when an under-construction retaining wall collapsed in Mugling of Nepal is misleading as the video shows a recent incident from Colombia in South America.
Result: False
Sources
Elespectador.com, 14 March, 2023
Gen Global Events News /YouTube, 13 March, 2023
Extrementweatheronearth /YouTube
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
