Recently, social media has been rife with a video of an individual crossing the Kuthiran tunnel near Thrissur in Kerala, with an ambiguous claim that purports the time taken between Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, to Thrissur, in ten minutes.
BOOM found this claim to be misleading; a quick search on Google Maps reveals that the distance between Coimbatore to Thrissur through the Kuthiran tunnel is approximately 113 km, with 2.20 hours of travelling time with average traffic.
A user shared the video on Twitter with the caption, "Coimbatore to Trichur Tunnel Opened. 2 hour journey is now ten minutes. Thanks to Govt of INDIA infrastructure development. NO MEDIA HOUSE TALKS about such news." View an archive of the tweet here.
Similar posts were also found on Facebook, with users sharing the exact same video and caption together.
The caption is vague, and does not specify whether it is referring to the entire journey between Coimbatore to Thrissur being reduced to ten minutes of travel time, or whether the tunnel reduces the travel time through Kuthiran from two hours to ten minutes.
However, looking through the various comments of those sharing the viral posts, it appears many users have percieved the caption as claiming that the tunnel would reduce the travel time between Coimbatore to Thrissur to just ten minutes.
Fact Check
BOOM did a quick search and found that the same post was originally shared by Ratnakar, the State Secratery General of Bharatiya Janata Party's Gujarat unit in August 8, 2021.
Following Ratnakar's post, BOOM had done an explainer highlighting that hours of travel time could be saved by taking the Kuthiran tunnel, rather than going through the old route through Kuthiran hills, by avoiding the traffic congestion in the old route.
However, while Ratnakar's viral caption remains vague, it has given the impression among many users that the viral caption is claiming the entire travel time between Coimbatore and Thrissur to be ten minutes, following the opening of the Kuthiran tunnel.
To investigate this claim, BOOM looked for the distance and estimated travel time between Coimbatore and Thrissur through Kuthiran tunnel on Google maps. While the distance appeared to be approximately 113km, the estimated travel time was shown to be more than 2 hours, depending on traffic conditions.
According to our calculations, to cover a distance of 113 km in ten minute, one would have to travel at an average speed of 678 km per hour (113 ÷ (10/60)), which far surpasses the speed limits of road vehicles around the world.
For reference, the speed record for reaching the fastest velocity using a motorcycle is 400 km per hour, while the top speed of the fastest car - the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut - is estimated to be around 330 km per hour. It would therefore not be possible to cover the distance between Coimbatore to Thrissur in ten min through the Kuthiran tunnel, even with the fastest vehicles available to public.