Fact Check: Viral video of a crocodile tearing into a man’s body makes a false claim
Incessant rain battered several parts of India, leading to flash floods and landslides. Schools and colleges have been shut down in states including Maharashtra, Telangana, etc.
Claim :
Viral video shows Crocodile killing a person in Andaman/ArmoorFact :
This incident took place in Indonesia in April 2019.
Incessant rain battered several parts of India, leading to flash floods and landslides. Schools and colleges have been shut down in states including Maharashtra, Telangana, etc. because of heavy downpour. Many videos of waterlogging and flooding of streets are going viral on social media. A few videos showing wild animals like lions, crocodiles and pythons coming onto the streets due to waterlogging are also seen.
Meanwhile, a graphical video of a crocodile biting into a body of a person is in circulation with different claims. The 25-second video is viral on YouTube with the claim that the incident occurred in Baratang, Port Blair in Andaman.
The caption on the video says: “Andaman- Crocodile killed and ate half body of a local man at Baratang, Port Blair. #andaman.”
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The same video is in circulation on WhatsApp with a Telugu caption that claims that the incident took place in Armoor, Nizamabad in Telangana. The claim goes as “ఆర్మూర్లో మనిషిని మింగేసిన ముసలి”
Fact Check:
The claim is false. This incident is not recent and it took place in Indonesia in April 2019.
When we performed a reverse image search in Google, we found that the video was shared on Facebook in April 2019 with the caption “Killer Crocodile eats man for breakfast… Be safe these creatures are extremely dangerously smart”
From this post, though we could not identify the location of the video, we could gather the information that the video was first posted in 2019.
Upon adding the keywords “Crocodile kills man 2019”, we found several articles published in April 2019.
The same video was published on www.newsflare.com on April 13, 2019. The article explains that the crocodile emerged with a missing person in its jaws.
Darlin Uti, 30, went snorkeling in the murky river to fix an underwater pipe near his home in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia on April 12, 2019, when the beast attacked.
An article in Dailystar states that Darlin’s sister, who was on the river bank, tried to save him by grabbing the hose he used to breathe underwater to pull him to safety but the crocodile thrashed around in the water and disappeared into the depths having sunk its fangs into Darlin's crotch.
Mirror.co.uk also published several images of the operations of the search and rescue team trying to trace the victim’s body which they could find only the next day of the incident.
Therefore, the video of a crocodile biting into a person’s lower body parts is being shared with false claims that it occurred recently in India. The claim is false.
