A YouTube video bore a clickbait headline and thumbnail claiming that a bridge in Pasig City split into two as Typhoon Carina wreaked havoc in Luzon last week.
Posted on July 25, the misleading 10-minute, 12-second video carried this headline:
“Mass Evacuation in the Philippines! Huge water flow breaks bridges and houses, Marikina flooded.”
The F. Manalo bridge did not collapse. The video’s thumbnail featured a manipulated photo of the bridge to make it look like a strong river current split the bridge.
Through a keyword search of the F. Manalo bridge, VERA Files Fact Check traced the original, undoctored photo to a July 24 Rappler article. The unedited picture showed that the F. Manalo Bridge remained intact but was damaged due to barges that rammed into it amid Carina’s onslaught.
Photos of flooding in other countries were also added to the image to make the situation look worse than reality. These included, among others:
- A picture of cars trapped in floodwater in India on July 12, 2021, published by Indian news platforms ZeeBusiness, Business Standard, and The Hindu; and
- A picture or video still of two people stranded on their rooftop at the Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan in September 2015, published by CBC Canada, CNN International and France24.
In a July 28 update, Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto said the damage to the bridge was extensive based on a rapid damage assessment. It will remain closed until further notice.
The misleading video surfaced a day after several barges were swept by the strong current of the Marikina River at the height of inclement weather, hitting the F. Manalo Bridge.
The clickbait video from the YouTube channel Wild WeatherUS (created Dec. 24, 2020) garnered 543,926 views, 3,700 likes, and 562 comments.
Editor’s Note: This story was produced with the help of a University of the Philippines student writing for VERA Files as part of his internship.
