A viral video of an elephant running down a street is doing the rounds on social media recently. Some vehicles can be seen on the street and some people getting out of the way.
Many social media users are sharing the 28-second video, claiming it to be from Beliatta in Sri Lanka.
A Facebook user posted the viral video with a caption: බෙලිඅත්ත නගරේ සිදුවූ දුර්ලබ දසුනක් … (English translation: A rare sight that happened in Beliatta…)
You can check the video here.
FACT CHECK
When NewsMobile fact-checked the viral video, it was found to be misleading.
Conducting a Reverse Image Search of the video keyframes, we found a YouTube video, dated August 8, 2022, on the verified channel of Ticker news — an Australian news network. The video titled Rhino runs through village in Nepal informs us that the incident happened in a village in Nepal.
The video keyframes match exactly with the viral video, and we could not find any information in the video linking it to Sri Lanka.
Searching further, we came across another YouTube video titled: Wild rhino running on the Sauraha street, published on October 14, 2022, on an unverified channel. The title informs that the rhino was running in the streets of Sauraha in Nepal.
Looking closely at the video, we can see Red Horse written on a board at the 13-second mark. Checking out about the same using Google Keyword Search, we found a Red Horse Pub and Music Bar in Sauraha, Chitwan, Nepal. We then looked for places around the bar to confirm the location of the video. Elements of one of the images in a nearby Friends cafe match precisely with the video keyframe at 00:19.
Searching about Chitwan, we got to know that Sauraha is the eastern gateway to Chitwan National Park — home to Most of Nepal’s one-horned rhinos. We could not find a single credible source of information that would link the video to Sri Lanka.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral video of a rhino running down a street in Sri Lanka is misleading.
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