Fact Check: Is Italy burying Corona victims in mass graves?
By Satya Priya BN Published on 31 March 2020 4:14 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Italy is one of the worst-hit nations as the death toll in the country due to Coronavirus crossed 10,000. Amidst this, a video showing piles of dead bodies reportedly in Italy has gone viral on social media. Dead bodies are being dumped in mass graves in Italy, the video claims. Many social media users have shared it with the title "Dead bodies of Corona victims in Italy!"
#DEAD BODIES OF CORONA VICTIMS IN ITALY,!! @NANA_PATOLE @VIKASTHAKRE @ASHISHRDESHMUKH @RASHIDIDRISI15 pic.twitter.com/l0ctm4LzDs
— Mehrunnissa Khan (@KhanMehrunnissa) March 26, 2020
A Facebook user shared the video with a post that read, "2020 Italy disposing dead bodies of corona (sic)."
Fact Check:
The above reports are FALSE.
In the video, the anchor can be heard saying, "Though unsubstantiated by state and city authorities, we now have information for a knowledgeable source that tells us the city's temporary morgues are filled beyond capacity. Mass graves have been dug for the incineration and burial of the dead. The current death toll due to the riptide virus is now in the thousands."
NewsMeter searched for riptide virus and found that it was from a web series called 'Pandemic'. The five-part series is about a deadly virus and the people at the frontline of fighting bioterrorism. In the show, a veterinarian finds herself in the midst of a horrifying pandemic where humans and animals are stricken with a horrible, contagious disease. She must pair up with an eccentric conspiracy theorist to discover the true source of the threat.
When we searched for the Pandemic series, we found several videos on YouTube.
The video that has been going viral is from 'Pandemic' and appears at 1:1:42.
'Pandemic' is also a 2016 American science fiction thriller film about the devastating impact of the deadly virus infection which has ravaged Los Angeles in the US, where the city is plunged into panic.
Hence, the claim that this video shows piles of dead bodies in Italy amidst the COVID-19 outbreak is FALSE. The video is a clip from a sci-fi series called 'Pandemic'.
