A video of a massive avalanche in Nepal is doing the rounds on Facebook with a false claim that it shows visuals of the recent glacial burst that occurred in Chamoli district in Uttarakhand on February 7.
The footage shows a huge chunk of snow sliding down a mountain and falling into the river.
A glacier burst in Raini village of Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on the morning of February 7, resulted in flash flooding and put in danger lives of people living along the banks of river Dhauliganga. According to reports 171 people have been missing since the flash floods occurred and 26 have been declared dead so far in the glacier burst.
The viral video is being circulated with the caption, "First video of glacier breaking in Chamoli, Uttarakhand this morning" (Original text: ''आज सुबह उत्तराखंड के चमोली में ग्लेशियर टूटने का पहला वीडियो 7 feb 2021'')
Archive can be seen here and here.
Viral video claiming to be a scene at Uttarakhan's glacier burst in Chamoli
It is also being shared with an English caption, "News till now Uttarakhand Video of glacier breaking in Uttarakhand's Chamoli"
Archive can be seen here.
Also read: Glacier Burst In Uttarakhand's Chamoli; Over 150 Reported Missing
Fact Check
BOOM broke the video into its key frames and ran a reverse image search on a few frames, and found a French website carrying the same video stating that the avalanche occurred in Nepal. The article published on January 17, 2021, included an Instagram video posted by an user called @naren32 who has uploaded the same video of snow sliding down a steep gorge.
We searched for the video on the Instagram profile of naren32 and found a number of videos uploaded in January from the incident- one shorter video of the Nepal avalanche and a longer footage of the same. The caption of the video says, "Huge Avalanche at Kapuche Lake. Here comes full video of huge avalanche, had to spend overnight at Kapuche lake (Lowest altitude glacier lake in the world) in order to catch this moment and it eventually paid off".
The same user had also uploaded the footage video on his Youtube Channel, Naren32 Rana on January 11, 2021 with the title ''Huge Avalanche at Kapuche Lake ( Lowest Altitude Glacier Lake In Nepal)''.
BOOM further found news reports on the Nepal avalanche incident and could ascertain that the video is from Kapuche Glacier Lake in Parche in Nepal.
The Weather Channel also reported on the incident. The report stated that there were no casualties but kayakers had to wrap up their activity because of the approaching avalanche.
The Weather Channel's report on the avalanche in Nepal
Also read: Photo From 2018 Fuel Hike Protest Viral As Farmers' March