A video of a boat capsize is viral on social media. Several users have claimed that the video is from Goa where an overcrowded boat sank. It is also claimed that 23 bodies were recovered, while 40 people were rescued alive and 64 were missing since the accident.
X (formerly Twitter) user @Rgowda_27 tweeted the video with the above claim and blamed the “greed of the boat owners” and the “over confidence of travellers” for the mishap. (Archive)
23 dead bodies 40 people rescued and 64 missing in Goa accident today. Greed of boat owners in overloading, overconfidence of passengers too. Very tragic.#goa pic.twitter.com/CxjFgkT21J
— Rawಜು (@Rgowda_27) October 5, 2024
Another X-user, @RaushanRRajput, amplified the claim. (Archive)
Goa accident today 23 bodies recovered 40 people rescued and 64 missing .
Greed of the boat owner in overloading, over confidence of travellers too. Very sad, tragic.💔🥺 pic.twitter.com/MKHioHlwKH— Raushan Raj Rajput (@RaushanRRajput) October 5, 2024
The tweet garnered over 26,100 views when this report was written.
X-user @jaashukla also tweeted the video and made the same claim. (Archive)
Goa accident today 23 bodies recovered 40 people rescued and 64 missing . Illetracy of using facility + Greed of the boat owner in overloading, over confidence of travellers. pic.twitter.com/W4UV21F8Du
— Jagruti Shukla (@jaashukla) October 5, 2024
Several other users have shared the photo with the same claim.
Fact Check
After breaking the video into keyframes, we ran a reverse image search with a few of them. This led us to a news report by CGTN Africa on YouTube which carried the video.
According to the report published on October 4, 2024, at least 78 people were killed after a boat sank in Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Central Africa.
Additionally, we also found a tweet by the official handle of Goa police (@Goa_Police) which clarified that the “video circulating on social media” was from Goma, Congo, Africa. Police urged users to “refrain from sharing unverified news”.
The tweet contained a screenshot of the video along with the viral claims.
Official Clarification:
A video circulating on social media claims a boat capsized near Goa’s shores. This is false. The incident occurred in Goma, Congo, Africa. Please refrain from sharing unverified news.
— Goa Police pic.twitter.com/tldVrc3bUm— Goa Police (@Goa_Police) October 5, 2024
Next, we performed a keyword search and found several news reports from October 3, 2024 on the boat capsize in Congo.
A BBC report states that the accident occurred in Lake Kivu in eastern Congo on Thursday, October 3, 2024 morning while a boat was arriving on Goma’s shore from Minova in South Kivu. At least 78 people died in the accident.
Reuters news agency reported that there were 278 passengers on board when the ferry capsized, according to regional governor Jean Jacques Purisi. He told Reuters, “It’ll take at least three days to get the exact numbers, because not all the bodies have been found yet.” The report added that the boat capsized around 700 meters from the port.
It is also to be noted that we did not find any credible news report of boat capsize in Goa on October 4 & 5, 2024.
To sum up, the video of the overcrowded boat sinking in water is not from Goa. It is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.
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