No, This Is Not The Pavana Dam In Pune

A video of a massive gush of water from a dam in China’s Yellow River is viral with a false claim that the floodgates Pavana dam have opened and flooded the city of Pune.

Incessant rainfall has paralysed Pune after parts of the city were submerged in water completely. Heavy rainfall has led to the release of water into the Mula, Mutha and Pavana rivers, causing a flood like situation in Pune and its nearby areas.

The 14-second long clip documents the release of water in rapid speed as an alarm siren can be heard in the background with people witnessing the flow of water.

The video is viral on WhatsApp and on Facebook and Twitter with captions claiming it shows the Pavana dam.

Viewed more than 35,000 times at the time of writing this article, the tweet has been captioned as, “Opened floodgates of one of the four reservoirs in Pune, India.”

The archived version of the tweet can be viewed here.

Click here for the tweet’s archive.

Fact Check

BOOM found a tweet commenting that the video is not from Pavana dam but from China.

BOOM was then able to locate a longer clip of 35 seconds, which was shared on Twitter on May 6 this year. The tweet claimed that it was the Xiaolangdi dam of Yellow river.

BOOM then ran a keyword search with ‘Xiaolangdi Dam’ and ‘Yellow river’  and was able to find the same video uploaded on YouTube with captions claiming that it is from China.

While we did not find a news site carrying the same video, we found similar videos uploaded by Chinese media agencies of water rushing out of the Xiaolangdi dam.

The Xiaolangdi Reservoir is based in China’s Henan province on the Yellow river. This dam is famous for sand and slit sedimentation and also draws tourists for its gargantuan water flow. Read more here and here.

A comparision of the dam structure in the viral clip and a Youtube video uploaded by New China TV on July 25, 2018 of the Xiaolangdi dam showed many similarities.