A video is being widely shared on social media showing multiple escalators on various levels collapsing, causing many people to fall.
The video is shared with a caption suggesting that the video is from a mall in Habitat Mall, Mysuru, Karnataka.
A social media user shared the video with a caption that reads, “Escalators collapsed and many dead at BM Habitat Mall, Mysore.”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral video is AI-generated.
A visual analysis of the video showed that it could have been artificially generated.
On closely observing the video, we found that there were many discrepancies common to AI videos. These involve two people ‘merging’ while walking, the reaction of people to the collapse being illogical.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same video was shared by a verified YouTube channel on Disaster Strucks. The video is shared with a caption suggesting that the viral video is old. The caption reads, “This is AI art, generated by me.”
We checked the bio of the YouTube channel, and it mentioned that the videos on its page are generated using Artificial Intelligence. The page had many videos, which were created using Artificial Intelligence. For example, a similar AI-generated video of a glass bridge falling in China.
To further verify, we checked the viral video with the AI detector tool, Hive, and found that the video was AI-generated. The video shows 99% AI-generated content.
Moreover, when we checked with appropriate keywords, we found that no such incident of elevators collapsing had happened in a Mysuru mall.
However, we found a report published by The Indian Express on September 9.
According to the report, Sunil, a 30-year-old technician at BM Habitat Mall, Mysuru, slipped through a false ceiling on the top floor while removing an advertisement board. A movie-goer, Chandru (25), seeing Sunil in danger, tried to save him. Both fell, suffered head injuries and died. Police have charged the mall manager with negligence.
The video was also published by Express Bengaluru on its X account on September 9.
The caption read, “Sunil, 30, a technician from Hunsur taluk who worked at the mall, and Chandru, 25, a Mysuru resident, died Monday evening after falling from a four-storey shopping mall in #Mysuru during an advertisement board removal operation.”
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral claim is false.
