Fake News Alert: Viral Delhi Hailstorm Video Turns Out To Be Forged

Heavy rain and hailstorm lashed several parts of Delhi-NCR last week, covering roads in a white shroud. While many residents have shared photos and videos of last week's hailstorm on social media, a particular video having visuals of golf-ball sized hailstones raining down on two cars is being shared from multiple pages. Many who are sharing this video are claiming it to be footage from last week's hailstorm in Delhi. But it is not the case.

While the visuals are truly spectacular, but a closer examination of the video helped identify clues which pointed out that the video was not from India at all.

This is how we found out that the video is fake

1. The number plate of the white car begins with the numerals ’34’. When searched on Google 'Vehicle registration plates that begin with 34' it was revealed that the car belongs to Turkey.

2.The driver is also seen on the left side indicating it is a left-hand drive car, not usually seen in India.

To verify it further, we did a google search on hailstorm videos. It was also uploaded earlier by various news channels who mistakenly associated it with footages from various other hailstorm incidents in India. A time map calculation, Google search, and Twitter advanced search of the same period tell us further that the incident happened in Istanbul, Turkey in July 2017 and was initially tweeted by a man named Kai Diekmann who shot the video himself. 

Tools we used to identify the video was fake:

1. Invid

2. Google Reverse Image Search

3. Twitter Advanced Search