Three videos have been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook alongside a claim they show people who died after contracting the novel coronavirus in India.
The post’s Burmese-language caption translates to English as: “Don’t be careless, Myanmar people! Earlier, India was careless with Coronavirus and saying that India has no coronavirus. Now, it is terrible they are dead.”, , The videos were also posted on Facebook\xa0here\xa0on May 10 with a caption questioning “is it covid or gas?”\xa0The post has been shared at least 851 times., The claim is false. The videos have circulated in reports about a deadly\xa0gas leak on May 7 at a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam, a city in the Indian state of\xa0Andhra Pradesh. The leak killed at least 12 people and left hundreds more hospitalised, AFP\xa0reported., A reverse image search on Google using keyframes extracted with InVID-WeVerify, a digital verification tool,\xa0found that the\xa0same video was published on YouTube here\xa0in a post titled “Toxic gas leakage from LG polymers | Creates High Tension @Vizag | Vizag Gas Leak Video” -- Vizag is a reference to Visakhapatnam., The exact footage can be seen from the one minute 20-second mark to the two-minute 26-second mark., Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the YouTube video (R):, At the 20-second mark of the first video, a car can also be seen with a license plate beginning AP31., AP31\xa0is among the official first characters for license plates for Visakhapatnam, as stated here on the Government of Andhra Pradesh website., , A reverse image search with\xa0a screenshot from\xa0the second video found that similar footage showing the same ambulance was published in a BBC report\xa0here\xa0on May 8., The report’s headline reads: “India gas leak: Culpable homicide charges after 11 die”., Below is a screenshot comparison of the second video in the misleading post (L) and the BBC video (R):, , At the video’s four-second mark, a license plate beginning AP31\xa0is also visible. Below is a screenshot of the video\xa0with the license plate circled in red:, , A reverse image search with a video\xa0screenshot from\xa0the third video\xa0found that the same footage was published on YouTube\xa0here\xa0by local Indian news channel Prag News on May 7, 2020., The video’s caption reads: “11 dead, 1000 reportedly sick after a gas leak in a chemical plant in Vizag. The incident has been compared to Bhopal Gas Tragedy.”, Below is a screenshot comparison between the third video\xa0in the misleading\xa0post (L) and Prag News video (R):, , The second and third videos were filmed on the same street in the northern part of\xa0Visakhapatnam, as seen\xa0here on Google Maps., Below is a\xa0comparison showing the same structure on the street with screenshots from the second video\xa0(bottom right)\xa0and third video (top right),\xa0as well as\xa0an image tagged on Google Maps\xa0at\xa0the location by a user\xa0(left):, , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
These videos show victims of a gas leak at a chemical plant in India in May 2020 | AFP Fact Check