Claim: A video shows darkness suddenly engulfing a market in Dera Ismail Khan, making people run and drivers turn on their headlights.
Fact: The video is, in fact, not from the summer 2022 monsoon season in Pakistan, nor is it from Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but Balochistan. It was originally uploaded online in March 2016.
On 21 August 2022, Twitter user DoN of Dubai (@ShahidM98387558) shared a video showing people running in a market as sudden darkness engulfs the area and vehicles at the scene turn on their headlights. The caption accompanying the clip, when translated to English, is as follows:
“Astaghfirullah [May God forgive us], Astaghfirullah, Astaghfirullah,
Clouds suddenly came down in Dera Ismail Khan and people started running away in fear.”
Dera Ismail Khan is a city in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check input a single screenshot from the start of the clip into Google Reverse Image Search, Yandex Reverse Image Search, and TinEye Reverse Image Search, leading us to a DailyMotion video, an article on Polish travel website Podróże, a YouTube video from 2016, and a Facebook video from 2016.
The Podróże article, published 9 March 2016, states, “Balochistan is a province in southwestern Pakistan. A few days ago, its southern part was completely dark after a huge sandstorm passed through it.”
The article sources its story to a video on Russian social network V Kontakte, or VK. The clip — which was uploaded on 7 March 2016 — is titled, “Хабуб в Пакистане [Haboob in Pakistan].”
The three videos identified by the reverse image searches all include captions and titles that referencing a sandstorm in Balochistan. The DailyMotion video, uploaded on 6 April 2016, is titled, “Extreme weather condition in Balouchistan, Pakistan”. The YouTube video, uploaded on 14 August 2016, has the caption, “Funny Vedio Dark Smoke”. The Facebook video uploaded on 10 March 2016, has a caption that translates to, “In Balochistan, a storm that brought nighttime during the day… May God forgive us.”
Soch Fact Check concludes that the video is neither recent nor from Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 30-day period from 10 August 2022 to 9 September using the following search terms:
- “ڈیرہ اسماعیل خان بادل”
- “ڈیرہ اسماعیل خان میں بادل اچانک نیچے آگئے”
The first search term turned up 305 posts on Facebook that gained close to 28,000 interactions, whereas the second search term turned up only one post that garnered more than 1,100 interactions.
The Facebook videos that were viewed more than 1,000 times are available here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The aforementioned Twitter video was viewed by close to 10,000 people and retweeted over 400 times. We also found other tweets here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video is, in fact, from March 2016 and shows a market in Balochistan. It is not from Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nor does it have any connection to the summer 2022 monsoon season in Pakistan.