Saudi Arabia Clip Peddled As Cyclone Striking Mumbai's Trident Hotel

A 2020 video of a slab of concrete falling on parked cars in Saudi Arabia's Medina during torrential rains is viral on social media with claims that it shows the destruction caused by Cyclone Tauktae near Trident Hotel in South Mumbai

The viral CCTV footage shows a parking lot as torrential rains ravage the area. Moments later, a huge slab of concrete falls on the parked cars, smashing their roofs. The video is being widely shared on WhatsApp with claims that it shows Hotel Trident, at Mumbai's Nariman Point during the Tauktae cyclone.

BOOM received the video several times on its helpline for verification as well. Cyclone Tauktae, an 'extremely severe cyclonic storm', is "very likely" to make landfall in Gujarat's Bhavnagar between 10 pm and 11 pm, with winds up to 165 km per hour, reported the NDTV. While the 'eye' of the storm bypassed Mumbai, the experienced heavy rainfall and winds up to 100 km per hour. The Mumbai airport has been shut till 4 pm and the Bandra-Worli sea link and the Mumbai Monorail are closed. Temporary shelters have been set up across the city.

The video is also doing the rounds as Goa.

Fact Check

Upon closely observing, a time stamp of July 30, 2020 can be seen on the CCTV footage.

We then broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search on few of its frames. We were directed to the same video uploaded on Facebook on March 26. According to the caption, a balcony fell on the cars parked due to strong wings in Al Mughtarib street.

We then ran a further keyword search and found the same video featured in a Fact Check in An-Nahar, a Lebanese news website, that clarified that the video is from Saudi Arabia's Medina.

Additionally, we found an Al Jazeera Arabic article from August 1, 2020, which featured the same viral CCTV footage. According to the report, several clips surfaced from citizens after torrential rain knocked down electricity poles and crashed cars and planes in Medina. Al Jazeera reported, "A number of photos and videos showed that a number of vehicles were damaged following the collapse of a part of an apartment building, which resulted in damage to a number of vehicles parked below the residential building, and it also fell in the Bagedo neighborhood in Medina."

Albawaba news, an Egyptian news portal, carried the aftermath of the torrential rains on the parking area on July 31. It report, "Video clips showed the fall of a large billboard in a street in Medina, along with damage to some cars due to the collapse of a part of an apartment building, which caused damage to the vehicles that were standing near this building."

BOOM matched frames of the viral video clip with the images shared on the news portal and found they are from the same location. Below is a comparison of the same.

AIR News Mumbai also carried real time visuals of the area near Trident Hotel in Mumbai and verified that the video circulating on social media is not related.

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