A video showing a bridge collapse incident is circulating across social media platforms, especially on Facebook.
In the five-second video, the overhead bridge collapsed as vehicles passed beneath and pedestrians scampered to safety.
Some Nigerian social media users posted the video with captions suggesting that the incident happened in the country.
A Facebook user identified as Goodluck Pyagbara with over 7,000 followers posted the video with the caption: “How APC 10billion bridge collapsed”.
Another Facebook user, Eze Ferdinand, posted the video with the caption: “Observed how this flyover bridge just collapse. What is the cause of the collapse?”.
On Wednesday, another Facebook user identified as Abass Tom posted screenshots of the video and claimed that the bridge is in Lafia, Nasarawa state.
The Facebook user claimed that the bridge collapsed “three weeks after commissioning and that “10billion” was spent to construct the bridge.
“Breaking News JUST IN Flyover collapse after 3 weeks of commissioning in Lafia, Nassarawa State. 10 Billion was spent on this project,” the Facebook user wrote.
Some hours after, the Facebook user edited the caption and claimed that the incident happened in Bihar, India.
“Flyover collapse after 3 weeks of commissioning in The Khagaria-Aguwani bridge collapses in Bihar. Visuals show a part of the bridge break down (Source: India Today). 10 Billion was spent on this project,” the user wrote.
Again, the user edited the caption to indicate that the incident did not happen in Nigeria.
CableCheck discovered the alterations to the post by checking the edit history.
A Facebook account — Dee Elegantz — with over 11,000 followers also shared screenshots of the video while attributing the incident to Lafia, Nasarawa.
An Indian X user @ManishCEO posted the video, saying it occurred in Bihar, a state in India.
Another X user also attributed the incident to Bihar.
VERIFICATION
Firstly, CableCheck observed that the people on the right side of the bridge were running towards the direction of the collapse instead of running away from the spot of the incident. This is an unnatural human behaviour towards danger.
Secondly, the SUV in the video kept moving towards the spot of the collapse, and the part of the road where the SUV was moving showed no visible cracks.
The trees on both sides of the road looked blurry, and when one of the bridge’s pillars fell on the right side of the road, it looked like there was no tree at the location.
Further search revealed a Facebook page that usually posts AI videos. The page posted a clearer version of the video on July 14.
The page indicated that the video was “made with AI” in the caption.
VERDICT
The viral video is AI-generated.
