Video From China Viral As Vehicles Driving On Potholed Mumbai Roads

A video of vehicles driving over a massive pothole on the has been falsely shared as Mumbai. BOOM analysed the clip and found that the video is from China and not India. 

In the 30 second clip, one can see several cars and trucks drive by with difficulty over the huge pothole on a busy street. 

The video is viral after Mumbai recorded heavy rainfall with several parts of the city reporting flooding and waterlogging.

Also Read: Mumbai Rains: Two Dead As Heavy Rain, Wind Batter City

The clip is being shared taking a jibe at Mumbai's civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) with the caption, "Vehicle suspension testing machine installed successfully by #BMC in #Mumbai."

Click here to view, and here for an archive.

Click here to view, and here for an archive.

Viral on Facebook

We found that the viral clip was being shared with the false caption.

Click here to view, and here for an archive.

Also Read: Video Of Boy Rescued From Open Drain In Pakistan Viral As Mumbai

FACT-CHECK

We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google, which showed results results for multiple Chinese websites saying the video shows a road in China.

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Taking a hint from this we searched with the keywords, 'potholes on Chinese road' on YouTube and found a video uploaded on LiveLeak dated July 12, 2020.

A Google search with the characters that appear on the bottom right corner of the video '小强兄弟 123', we found a longer video 1.54 minutes. This longer version of the video was uploaded on June 16, 2020, on Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing site. 

The video caption when translated reads, "Record how many cars have passed by leveling the earth? ? Everyone pay attention to safety when driving."

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Visual Cues 

We analysed the longer version of the clip and found that video is not from Mumbai or even India. 

1) Chinese Shop billboards

We noticed that the shop billboards present in the background had Chinese characters. We used Google's translation app which recognised the language as Chinese. 

2) Jiangling Motors Vehicle 

At the 1.30 minute counter in the video, a white truck passes by with 'JMC' written on it. A search showed that JMC stands for Jiangling Motors Corporation Limited (JMC) a Chinese automobile manufacturer headquartered in Jiangxi, China.

3) Driving on the right side of the road.

Additionally, in the video one can spot left hand side driving in the vehicle unlike India, which has right hand driving rules. This means that in the video the steering wheel can be seen on the left side in the vehicles, whereas in India it is on the right side.

We could not independently verify the origin of the video, however, we could establish that the viral clip is not from Mumbai as being falsely claimed. 

BOOM previously debunked a video of a young boy being rescued from an open drain filled with rainwater in Karachi, Pakistan which was being falsely shared as an incident in Dongri, Mumbai.