FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show A Landslide In Pakistan?

Brad Sylvester | Fact Check Editor

A video shared on Facebook allegedly shows a landslide that occurred in Pakistan.

Verdict: False

The video shows a July 25 landslide in India.

Fact Check:

The roughly one-minute video depicts rocky debris tumbling rapidly down the side of a mountain. At one point, a boulder hits a nearby bridge, causing it to break in half and fall into the river beneath it.

Multiple Facebook users have claimed in recent days that the video shows a landslide in Pakistan, with one such post having received over 6,200 views. That claim is, however, not correct. (RELATED: Does This Image Show A Two-Story House Caught In A Landslide?)

Check Your Fact determined through a keyword search that the pictured landslide actually occurred in India. News outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, Reuters and Global News, published the same footage with reporting about it showing a July 25 landslide that happened in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India. It killed at least nine people, according to CNN and The New York Times.

Landslides are “caused by disturbances in the natural stability of a slope” and “can accompany heavy rains or follow droughts, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. India, which has landslide-prone areas in the Himalayas, has experienced heavy monsoon rains this season, The New York Times reported.

On the day before the landslide in the video occurred in India, a landslide in Pakistan’s Balochistan province killed at least four coal mine workers, according to the Press Trust of India. Last year, 16 people were killed in northern Pakistan from a landslide that buried their minibus under debris, according to the Associated Press.

Brad Sylvester

Fact Check Editor
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