Old video of landslide shared as a recent one from Manali

Context

Relentless heavy rain from July 8, 2023, has led to floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh. Hindustan Times reported that the downpour has led to rivers flowing over the danger mark and property damage across the state, while road and rail links have been disrupted. The report added that a three-storeyed hotel building in Manali, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh, crashed into the Beas River. As of July 10, landslides had disrupted traffic on 1,694 roads.

Following the news of the extreme weather, videos of landslides and heavy rain are being shared on social media, including some claiming to show a landslide in Manali. One such 14-second-long video of huge rocks falling from a mountain over a road and gorge has been shared on Twitter and Facebook with captions such as “Doomsday like landslide in Manali, Himachal Pradesh.” Archived posts can be found here, here, and here.

However, this visual is neither recent nor from Manali.

In Fact

We conducted a reverse image search using a screenshot from the viral video, and it led us to many similar social media posts from over the years. The oldest uploads we could find were from 2019, claiming to be from Ramban, Jammu & Kashmir. Taking a cue from this, we looked into news coverage of this incident from 2019 for credible reports.

According to a report published by The Tribune on July 28, 2019, the original video is 51 seconds long and includes visuals of vehicles driving away while honking. The Tribune’s caption on its website reads, “The Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was closed for traffic due to shooting stones at various places between Ramban and Banihal stretch of the highway, falling in Ramban district of the state.” The report quoted a traffic official as saying, “Yatris coming back from Pahalgam have been stopped at Shaitan nullah and Banihal, whereas no vehicle was allowed from Jammu towards the Valley.”

ABP News carried the viral video in its report from the same day and added that due to the falling rocks, there was a long traffic jam. The viral video was also included in Aaj Tak’s news coverage dated July 29, 2019.

Two days later, ANI reported that according to Udhampur Deputy Superintendent of Police Traffic LK Taneja, "The 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was closed due to landslide and falling of stones from hilltops in Moud area of Udhampur district due to continuous heavy rainfall.” He also said that the Amarnath Yatra and traffic on the highway were suspended due to the falling rocks and landslide.

Logically Facts was not independently able to confirm that the video shows a landslide in Jammu & Kashmir’s Ramban. However, as the video has existed on the internet since 2019, and reports state that it shows an incident in Ramban, it is clear that it does not show a landslide in July 2023 in Manali.

NDTV reported that as of the early hours of July 11, the heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh have led to 30 deaths and caused damage worth ₹3,000 crore. It added that rain-induced landslides cut access to and stranded over 500 tourists in Chandertal, Pagal Nallah, and other places in Lahaul and Spiti.

The Verdict

An old video of a landslide, reportedly from Ramban is incorrectly being shared as an incident from Himachal Pradesh in July 2023. As the video has existed on the internet since at least July 2019, we have marked this claim false.