Fact-check: Is this a video of a 'miracle' river that appears for one month in Southern India? - Alt News
Kinjal
1st October 2021 / 3:41 pm
A video of a gushing stream of water is viral on social media with the claim that it is ‘Pitri River’ appears for a month every year in Southern India. According to the claim, the river emerges on the new moon night of Pitru Paksha and disappears on Diwali, i.e., Amavasya (new moon). The video is being shared as a wonderful miracle of nature. Facebook page ‘Mahadev ke Pujari‘ made the same claim while posting the clip.
Facebook user Deepika Solanki also shared the visuals and accompanying claim.
This video is widespread on Facebook and Twitter. We received a few requests on the Alt News WhatsApp helpline number (+9176000 11160) to fact-check the clip.
It was also uploaded on YouTube in 2018 with the same claim.
Alt News performed a reverse image search of a frame from the video and found another version of it posted online in 2017. It was uploaded to YouTube on September 19, 2017, as a video of water from the Kaveri river entering Mayavaram, a town in Tamil Nadu. In addition, many other users had uploaded the visuals in 2017 as Tamil Nadu. (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDJ7iz368xI]
Upon further research, we found a report by The Hindu dated September 11, 2017. According to this, Kaveri Maha Pushkaram was going to be celebrated in Tamil Nadu’s Mayiladuthurai from September 12-24, 2017.
Furthermore, a Deccan Chronicle story from September 10, 2017, stated that the coordinator of the Pushkaram committee had requested the Karnataka government to release water from the Kaveri river so that the Maha Pushkaram festival could be celebrated without any interruptions.
The Hindu reported on September 19, 2017, that the Karnataka government had released water from the Cauvery river from the Mettur dam. Following this, many devotees had gathered on the banks to worship the river.
India Today also published a fact-check article about this video in 2019.
Therefore, the Karnataka government released water from the Kaveri river in 2017 for devotees to celebrate the Kaveri Pushkaram festival in Tamil Nadu. This water did not enter the town due to natural causes. Visuals of the gushing water were falsely shared on social media as a miracle.
Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.
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