Old images shared as roads blocked in Gujarat due to heavy rainfall - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
30th July 2019 / 6:58 pm / Last updated: 30th July 2019
“ભાવનગરથી અમદાવાદના તમામ રોડ બંધ થઈ ગયા છે. રાજધાની,તન્ના તથા S.T. ની તમામ બસો પરત ફરેલ છે.અને ફેદરા, લોલિયા,ધોલેરા,પીપળી, ધોળકાના રસ્તાઓ બંધ કરવામાં આવ્યા છે. મહેરબાની કરીને જે લોકો અમદાવાદ તરફ કે બગોદરા તરફ આવનાર લોકોને પરત ફરવા જણાવવામાં આવે છે. અમદાવાદ થી ભાવનગર તરફ જતા રસ્તામાં આવતા બ્રિજોની નીચેથી નદીઓ ભયજનક રીતે વહી રહી છે. તો દરેક મિત્રોને જાણ કરવામાં આવે છે. પોસ્ટ શેર કરી મેસેજ આગળ સુધી પહોંચાડો (All roads from Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad have been shut. All the buses including State Transport, Tanna and Rajdhani have returned. Roads to Fadera, Loliya, Dholera, Pipali, Dholka have been closed. Please inform the people who are going to Ahmedabad or Bagodra to return. The rivers flowing under the bridges located on the way from Ahmedabad to Bhavnagar are flowing at a dangerous level. Hence, all friends are being informed. Please share the post and forward this message -translated)”
The above message claiming that all roads from Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad are blocked due to flooding is being circulated on Facebook by individual users from Gujarat. One Ritik Valodra posted the message along with three photographs showing submerged roads and overflowing rivers underneath a bridge. It may be noted that Gujarat has been under a spell of rain for the last 48 to 72 hours. Facebook page – BJP Jhagadia Vidhansabha – also posted the same images with a similar narrative.
Sakal, a Marathi-daily based in Pune, tweeted the images with a claim that there was heavy rainfall in the cities of union territories like Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
Twitter user Arvind Chaudhari alerted Alt News about such a message circulating on Facebook.
Alt News contacted the authorities at Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) to inquire whether buses travelling from Ahmedabad to Bhavnagar and vice-versa had returned due to submergence of roads and overflowing rivers. Speaking to Alt News, N.S Patel, the Chief Traffic Manager at GSRTC, said, “There is no such issue. It’s all fake.”
Alt News found that all the four images which have been circulated along with this claim are old and have been present on the internet since 2017.
A Google reverse image search of this picture led us to an article published by Patrika on July 26, 2017, which carried the photograph. The article was on the 2017 floods in the state and the caption inscribed below the image identified it to be taken in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
While looking for the same message circulated by other individuals on Facebook, Alt News found that the same pictures were shared by several users with an identical message in 2017. Pictures that existed on the Internet in the year 2017 cannot be representative of recent rainfalls in Gujarat.
In conclusion, old images of submerged roads and flooding rivers dating back to at least 2017 were circulated in the Gujarati social media ecosystem to raise a false alarm that public transport between Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar has ground to a halt due to heavy rainfall.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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