Viral Images Claiming To Show Rudraprayag Bus Accident Are AI-Generated

Claim

Two images claiming to show the mini bus, which was carrying pilgrims to Badrinath Dham, that fell into the Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag on Thursday (June 26), killing at least four passengers.

 The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here.

Fact

Newschecker noticed the overall glossy and painting-like texture of the images, indicating that they might be AI-generated. Also, we did not find any such image in the multiple media reports on the accident and the ongoing search operations to locate eight others who are still missing.

Image 1

We ran the image past Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection tool, which found it 97.9% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content. Similarly, the SightEngine tool found it 95% likely to be AI-generated.

Image 2

We ran the image past Hive Moderation, which found it 99.9% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content. Similarly, the WasitAI tool stated that it was quite confident that ”this image, or significant part of it”, was created by AI.

Also Read: Ahmedabad Plane Crash: Old, Unrelated Mayday Call Falsely Shared As Cockpit Audio From AI 171

Sources
Hive Moderation tool
SightEngine tool
WasitAI tool