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An old video of a cloudburst near Amarnath Shrine in Pahalgam is viral on social media with the claim that 4000 pilgrims were evacuated to safer places, which created fear among the Yatris.
Almost all national news channels and newspapers carried the news. You can read them here, here, and here.
Fact Check/Verification
During the course of the research, we found that the Times of India had reported with official confirmation that over 4,000 pilgrims were evacuated to safer places after a cloudburst occurred near the Amarnath shrine on Wednesday afternoon.
The Quint quoted NDTV report that “rescue operations are underway in the area, adding that no casualties have been reported yet. The Yatra was temporarily suspended on Tuesday after heavy rainfall in the mountains around the shrine”. NDTV later replaced the news (Below you can see the screenshot of the removed news item) with an apology from the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) official who allegedly had shared an old video as recent.
Screen shot of NDTV report which they later changed.
To ascertain the fact we conducted a google search with the keyword “Cloudburst near Amarnath shrine” and found multiple results. Many of the media organizations claimed that the cloudburst actually happened on July 09, in which 15 people were killed and 40 were missing. You can access reports here, here, and here.
We also found a Facebook page named Kashmir Post which has shared the video, however, we could not find the video anywhere else on the internet.
The link to the video can be found here
The SDMA authorities later issued a statement, saying that there was no cloudburst near Amarnath Shrine on July 27. Due to heavy rains, there were only 500 Yatris present near the cave.
Conclusion
Hence, we conclude that the viral video is old, there is no recent cloudburst, and the claims of cloudburst by the media house on July 27, are false. The cloudburst actually happened on July 09.
Read More: Budgam Youth Arrested For Digging Tunnel To Girlfriend’s House? No, False Claim Goes Viral
Result: False
Our Sources
Report By Indian Express, Dated July 09, 2022
Report By Times of India Dated July 09, 2022
Telephonic Conversation With SDMA official
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