An image of heavy traffic jam on Manali-Leh highway from January, 2022 has been shared on social media as recent amid reports of heavy traffic in the Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh.
Media outlets including Editorji and TV9 Hindi have also used the image to report about the traffic congestion in the Atal Tunnel.
BOOM found that the photograph was clicked on January 2, 2022 by content creator Yash Handa on the Leh-Manali highway.
According to reports, 19,383 vehicles crossed via Atal Tunnel between 8 am on December 25 to 8 am on December 26. After Rohtang, the 9.02km-long tunnel on Manali-Leh Highway at an altitude of 10,020 feet was opened for civilians on October 3, 2020. The tunnel is a major attraction for tourists heading towards Lahaul valley in Himachal Pradesh.
The image shows an aerial view of an entire valley road choc-a-block with vehicles.
The image has been captioned as, "This is the record number of vehicles ever crossed after the opening of the Atal Tunnel. #manali"
IFS officer Dharamveer Meena also tweeted the image.
The image was also posted on Facebook stating condition of Rohtang's Atal Tunnel on December 25. "25th December: हाले बेहाल Atal Tunnel (Rohtang) की और"
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Fact Check
We ran a reverse image search and found that the image was published on Instagram by a content creator and travel enthusiast Yash Handa, on January 27, 2022.
The image was bookmarked with the text "theyashhanda" and location was tagged as Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
BOOM reached out to Yash, who confirmed that the image was clicked by him on January 2, 2022. A similar image of vehicular jam in the valley was also posted by Yash's Instagram account on January 29, 2022.
We found the viral image has been trimmed to omit the watermark by Yash.
Geo-Location of the viral photograph
BOOM found the place is located on Leh-Manali highway ahead of Nehru Kund and also geo-located the area on Google Maps (32°17'26.8"N 77°10'47.3"E) and Google Earth Pro.
Here is a comparison below.
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