Recently, a natural disaster in Sikkim led to the deaths of 14 people. Hundreds of people remain missing due to the cloudburst. Meanwhile, a video showing a column of rain moving from mountain to water body with a thunder sound in the background is going viral on social media, claiming that it is a cloudburst taking place in Sikkim.
A Facebook user shared this video and wrote: “North Sikkim CloudBrust Video #clousbrust #SikkimNews #clouds #news #SadNews #northsikkimnews #nepalinews #cloudbrustnews #ohmygod #veryBadnews.”
This Facebook post can be seen here. See similar viral posts here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewMobile fact-checked the above claim and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the video keyframes, our team found the same video on YouTube, dated October 27, 2020, titled “Microburst at Lake Millstatt in #Austria.” The description of the video reads: “It is situated at 588 metres above the Adriatic (1,929 ft), north of the Drava Valley within the Gurktal Alps (Nock Mountains) range of the Central Eastern Alps, near the town of Spittal an der Drau. With a surface area of 13.3 km2 (5.1 sq mi) Lake Millstatt is the second-largest lake of Carinthia (after Lake Wörth), though with a depth of 142 m (466 ft) the most voluminous by far.”
With an open keyword search, our team spotted a “longer version of the viral video on a YouTube handle ‘Peter Maier’, dated June 12, 2018. According to the description, the video shows the timelapse of a downburst/microburst over Lake Millstatt in Carinthia, Austria.
Some people had called the video fake after which Maier quickly ended that speculation, writing on Facebook: “Here are a few original recordings with original sound clips, for all those who still believe that it is fake.”
According to AccuWeather, a microburst is a small column of exceptionally intense and localised sinking air that results in a violent outrush of air at the ground. It is capable of producing damaging straight-line winds of more than 100 mph that are similar to that in some tornadoes, but without the tornado’s rotation.
Hence, we can conclusively say that the viral video showing the recent cloudburst in Sikkim is fake.
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