2018 video of bridge collapse in Russia shared as recent

What’s the claim?

On April 8, 2024, a road bridge reportedly collapsed onto a railway track in Vyazma, located in the Smolensk region of Russia. The collapsed of the structure, known as The Paninsky Bridge, caused significant damage, resulting in one fatality and injuring five others.

In light of this incident, social media users have shared a video depicting a bridge collapse as a truck goes over it, narrowly avoiding a passing train below. The video is gaining traction on X (formerly Twitter), with one user sharing the clip with the caption, "In Russia, a road bridge collapsed, killing at least 1 person. This happened in the Smolensk region. The bridge collapsed on the railway tracks, the main transport corridor between Belarus and the Russian Federation is blocked." The post was viewed over 574,000 times and had over 800 reposts. Archived versions of such posts can be found here, here, and here.

Screenshot of claims made online. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is old and has nothing to do with the April 2024 accident in Russia’s Smolensk city.

What we found

A reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video revealed that the footage was previously published in October 2018, albeit from a different angle. An Italian news network, Panorama, featured the video in its report on October 9, 2018, stating that it shows the collapse of a bridge along the Trans-Siberian railway line in Russia. Additionally, a report by the Turkish daily newspaper Yeni Şafak included visuals seen in the now-viral video and stated that the incident occurred in the Far Eastern Amur region of Svobodny, Russia.

Screenshot of news reports from 2018. (Source:Yeni Şafak)

A reverse image search also led us to an X post carrying the same clip, dated October 10, 2018. The video was captioned in Russian and a rough translation states, "Another video of the destruction of a bridge in the Amur region. It’s interesting because here you can see how miraculously a railway worker survived (on the right in the frame). The guy now has a second BD."

Upon looking further for reports from the 2018 incident, we found a news article from the Associated Press containing images of the aftermath. The report highlighted that the bridge collapse had caused a disruption in traffic along a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, renowned as the world's longest railroad line. Further stating that the railway network connects Moscow to Vladivostok. 

The Associated Press also uploaded visuals of the April 8, 2024, accident in Smolensk on their YouTube channel. 

A comparison between the footage of the April 2024 incident and the viral video reveals a notable difference: in the viral video, a train standing is visible underneath the collapsed bridge, whereas in the recent incident footage, no train is present below the collapsed bridge. Also, in the viral video, we can see many concrete pillars in the platforms between the railway tracks. However, these structures are absent at the actual collapse site.

Comparison of the aftermath visuals of the 2024 incident and the viral video. (Source: X/Associated Press)

The verdict

The video purportedly depicting the bridge collapse incident in Russia’s Smolensk region on April 8, 2024, has been online since 2018. An older video from a different accident in Russia is being shared with the current narrative. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.