Did elephants sense Wayanad landslides 1 hour before and rush to safety? Fact Check

Claim: Video shows elephants rushing to safety one hour before Wayanad landslides.

Conclusion: Misrepresentation. The original video is from January 2024 and not just one hour before Wayanad landslides on July 30, 2024.

Rating: Misrepresentation —

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A video claiming to show a herd of elephants rushing to safety just before the landslides in Wayanad district in Kerala is being shared on social media.

Elephants running to safety 1 hour before the landslide in Wayanad, Kerala. Animals have subtle vision. pic.twitter.com/BSywnKRjtP

— 🚩Mohan Gowda🇮🇳 (@MohanGowda_HJS) August 4, 2024

The video clip is shared with a caption that says:“Elephants running to safety 1 hour before the landslide in Wayanad, Kerala. Animals have subtle vision.”

The claim suggests that the animals could foresee the tragic landslide an hour before it happened on July 30, 2024 and also adds a statement that the animals have subtle vision of natural disasters. The claim can be accessed here and here on X.

FACT-CHECK

Taking a few key frames from the video, we checked on Google Reverse Image search and the results showed that the video clip is from a Youtube channel of @TravelwithAJ96, uploaded four months ago in 2024. The original video showed a herd of elephants crossing the road.

The same video can be seen on Instagram by @wayanadan and jashir.ibrahim on January 12, 2024 with a caption that read:“Just 900 Kandi things…”

Clearly, the original video clip shows that the elephants were running to safety NOT one hour before the Wayanad landslides as claimed but way back in January 2024. Hence, the claim is false.

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