Cattle Washed Away By Floodwaters In Mexico Falsely Shared As Kerala

A video from Mexico of cattle herd being washed away by raging floodwaters is viral claiming it is from a farm in Wayanad, Kerala. The video is being shared as parts of Kerala face severe damage from heavy rains with Idukki district reporting a landslide that killed 17 people and led to massive damage.

The authorities have declared a red alert three districts of Kerala including in Wayanad, Kozhikode and Idukki and asked people to be move to safer areas with heavy rains predicted August 9, 2020.

The 30-second clip shows cattle being washed away in the flowing stream of muddy rainwater and is viral with a caption that suggests the incident is from the recent rains in Kerala. The caption reads, "Cattle from a farm in Wayanad being washed away by the flood waters Today. What a sad tragedy."

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BOOM received the clip on its WhatsApp helpline number (7700906111) inquiring about it.

Viral on Facebook

We searched on Facebook with the same caption and found that the video was viral with the false claim.

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FACT-CHECK

We ran a reverse image search on the video keyframes and results showed that the clip is from Mexico when the tropical storm Hanna caused heavy rains and led to the Zacualpan river overflowing. The incident is from Nayarit where the rains and the flowing river water displaced houses nearby and also washed away the cattle.

We found an article reported by a Mexican newspaper La Jornada, which carried the same viral clip with the headline when translated saying, "Thousands of affected after the passage of 'Hanna'; 5 dead" The story was reported on July 28, 2020.

Tropical storm Hanna hit Mexico on July 26, 2020 bringing severe flooding that caused considerable property damage and also led to loss of human life and cattle.

We also found a longer version of the video uploaded on YouTube on June 28, 2020.

The 59 second video was uploaded with the caption, "The heavy and constant rains left by the Hanna meteorological phenomenon in Nayarit has caused flooding and livestock losses, both in San Blas and Compostela, the municipalities most affected so far."

On comparing the viral clip with the original video, we found that both match, as the sequence of events are the same.

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