Video from Venezuela shared as 'chaos following cloudburst' in New Delhi

What is the claim?

An eleven-second video circulating on social media shows people running in chaos near a yellow flyover with dark smoke in the sky. It is accompanied by a Hindi caption claiming, "chaos in Delhi after a cloud burst." Many versions of the video include this caption overlaid on the footage. Archive links to these posts are available here, here, here, and here.

New Delhi, India's capital, recently experienced extremely heavy rainfall on July 31, 2024. While there was speculation about a possible cloudburst, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) confirmed it was an extremely heavy rainfall event. For a rain event to be classified as a cloudburst, it must exceed 100 mm of rain in one hour. Delhi received over 100 mm of rain in three hours, so it was not categorized as a cloudburst.

In this context, the video is being falsely presented as showing chaos in Delhi following heavy rains. In reality, the footage was filmed in Venezuela, South America.

Screenshot of the claims circulating online (Source:Instagram/YouTube/Modified by Logically Facts)

What are the facts?

A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led to an X (formerly Twitter) account named dokuz8haber, belonging to a Turkey-based news website. On July 30, 2024, this account shared a similar video on X (archive here) with the caption in Turkish, translating to "one person died in protests against election results in Venezuela."

Monitoreamos, a Spanish news website, also shared the video on July 30, 2024, on X (archive here) with the caption, "Protest in Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui state, against Maduro's fraud."

From Monitoreamos’ post, we identified the "CCR" logo on a brown building next to the flyover. This led us to determine that the building is CC Regina Mall in Venezuela.

Comparison of X post and the Google Maps image(Source:X/GoogleMaps)

A keyword search also turned up a Reuters photo report published on July 30, 2024, featuring images from the protests in Venezuela. One of these images shows the yellow bridge and the large brown building seen in the viral video.

According to Reuters, protests erupted in Venezuela following the announcement of presidential election results, which declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner of a third term. The contested results sparked widespread demonstrations.

Screenshot of the Reuters report on Venezuela protests (Source:Reuters)

To confirm this, we geolocated the mall using Google Maps and found a photosphere view showing both the bridge and CC Regina Mall. This confirms that the video was filmed in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela.

The verdict

A video of Venezuelan protests over disputed election results was falsely shared as depicting chaos in Delhi following a cloudburst.