Fact Check: Viral video showing fish afloat in a supermarket makes a false claim; it is NOT aftermath of floods
Cyclone Michaung had a devastating effect on Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu. More than 18,000 people were displaced and moved to relief camps around Chennai city. The relentless rains induced by the storm resulted in severe flooding. The Chennai airport which was built on the flood lanes of Adyar river had to suspend operations,
Claim :
Viral video shows fish afloat in a supermarket in Chennai due to floodsFact :
The video is an old one from the year 2018, when an aquarium broke releasing the fish in the tank in a supermarket in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Cyclone Michaung had a devastating effect on Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu. More than 18,000 people were displaced and moved to relief camps around Chennai city. The relentless rains induced by the storm resulted in severe flooding. The Chennai airport which was built on the flood lanes of Adyar river had to suspend operations, affecting nearly 200 flights and leaving passengers stranded. Railway lines were also submerged in water forcing cancellation of several trains. Many low-lying areas were submerged in 3-4 feet of water.
Several parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha are now crawling back to normalcy with the storm making a landfall near Bapatla in Andhra Pradesh.
Amidst this, a video showing fish swimming in shallow waters in a supermarket is being shared virally with the caption “Chennai floods in Supermarket”. This video is shared on all platforms of social media. In the video, we can see the fish trying hard to survive as the water is very shallow.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The video is not from Chennai during the recent floods. The video is an old one from the year 2018 when an aquarium carrying live fish broke and they spread on the floor.
When we extracted the key frames from the video and searched using reverse image search, we found a few YouTube videos published in February 2018.
A YouTube channel named georgianborat shared the video with the title ‘Fish swim on Carrefour supermarket hypermarket store floor in Tbilisi, Georgia viral video”. The description of the video states that the aquarium broke at one of the supermarket chain stores and employees ended up catching swimming fish on the floor.
According to upi.com, a shopper at a Georgian grocery store captured a video of an aisle filled with flopping fish after an aquarium shattered.
According to the mirror.co.uk, it is unclear how the aquarium broke, but the aftermath was captured by an onlooker. The incident occurred at the Carrefour branch in Tbilisi where the staff can be seen trying to gather the fish using nets.
Hence, the viral video is not from recent floods in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, but shows an incident that occurred in 2018 in the country Georgia. The claim is False.
