Videos from a recent avalanche in Sikkim are being shared with the false claim that they show an avalanche hit on the Amarnath yatra route in Jammu and Kashmir, injuring hundreds of people.
BOOM found that the videos were unrelated to Jammu and Kashmir, and are from a deadly avalanche that hit the Nathu La pass in Sikkim.
The first video shows people using their bare hands to rescue people buried under the snow. The second video shows the beginning of the avalanche from a distance.
Seven people were killed on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, as a result of the avalanche that swept across Sikkim's 14th Jawaharlal Nehru Road connecting Gangtok and the Nathu La pass.
A user on Twitter shared the videos with the caption, "During the Amarnath Yatra, a mountain of snow fell, hundreds of people were buried"
(Original text in Hindi: "अमरनाथ की यात्रा में बर्फ का पहाड़ गिरा सैकड़ों लोग दबे होने की")
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the videos are not from the Amarnath yatra, but from the recent avalanche in Sikkim that occurred on April 4.
Video 1- People Stuck Under the Avalanche
A reverse image search of one of the keyframes led us to a YouTube video uploaded on April 4. The video was titled, 'road update heavy snowfall Changu Lake"
The upload date of the video is April 4, 2023, which is the same day the Sikkim avalanche took place.
We also found the viral video uploaded by another YouTube channel Poth Chola on the same date. Watch here.
Video 2- Sliding Avalanche
A keyword search on YouTube led us to a report by EastMojo uploaded on April 4 that carried the same video from a different angle. The clip from 0:00-0:07 matches our video.
Here is a comparison:
We also found the same video uploaded on Twitter by Nitesh R Pradhan, editor of The Voice of Sikkim on April 4.
Other news outlets such as Aaj Tak and News18 UP Uttarakhand have also shared the same video on YouTube.
We also searched for recent news reports about an avalanche in Amarnath and did not get any results. The most recent report was from July 2022 when a cloudburst led to severe flash floods.
