Fact Check: Terrifying bridge collapse over river? No, video is AI-generated

Hyderabad: A video of a bridge collapsing, with vehicles and people on it falling into a river below, is going viral on social media.

The video was shared on X with the caption, “This is absolutely terrifying to watch”. (Archive)

In the comments, many X users are seen tagging ‘Grok’, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant and asking whether the video depicted a real incident. Some are even seen asking where the incident took place.

Interestingly, some of Grok’s replies turned out to be different from our analysis of the video. Here’s how.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is AI-generated.

A reverse image search did not yield any credible social media posts using the same clip while talking about a collapsed bridge.

If such a bridge collapse happened, immersing vehicles and people into a river, there are bound to be news reports about the issue. However, we found that there are no news reports using the visuals from the video.

This hinted that the video might be fake.

Visual discrepancies

We found many discrepancies upon closely observing the viral video. The railing on the right side of the bridge, present at the beginning of the video, is absent after 5 seconds. Between the 00:00 second mark and the 00:03 second mark, people on the bridge seem to disappear into thin air. Screenshots showing the progression of these discrepancies can be found below.

AI or not?

This made it clear that the video is not authentic. To find out whether the video has been generated using AI, we analysed a screenshot of the video using Sight Engine AI Detector. The tool determined that the visual is 95 per cent likely to be AI-generated.

We also used Hive Moderation AI video detector to confirm the same and found that the video is 99.9 per cent likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.

Grok’s wrong replies

X users commented under the viral post, prompting Grok to check whether the video shows a real incident. In most of the replies, the AI assistant claimed that the video is indeed real footage of a bridge collapsing in China.

We analysed 17 such queries Grok replied to regarding the authenticity of the video. In 14 of those replies, Grok claimed that the video shows real footage originating from China. Only three of the replies from Grok acknowledge that the video is AI-generated.

In some replies where Grok claimed that the video shows real footage, the AI assistant also gave the location and the date when the supposed bridge collapse took place. The death toll and the number of vehicles lost were also quoted by the xAI assistant in some replies. Notably, Grok also stated that news organisations such as CNN, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Newsweek, People’s Daily, WION and Chinese media published reports about the bridge collapse incidents.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is clear that the viral video does not depict a real incident. It shows AI-generated content. NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.