False: Video shows Vande Bharat Express train compartment flooded with water.

By: Anurag Baruah
December 19 2022

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Context

On December 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the sixth semi-high-speed Vande Bharat Express train in the country, connecting Bilaspur (in Chattisgarh) and Nagpur (in Maharashtra). The first Vande Bharat train was kicked off more than three years ago in February 2019, and since then, this 'Make in India' initiative has found itself at the center of several controversies. Over the years, multiple photos and videos have surfaced on social media claiming to be of accidents and technical snags involving the Vande Bharat Express.

A day before the scheduled inauguration of the Bilaspur-Nagpur train, a Twitter user shared a 25-second clip in which one can see water gushing into a train compartment through an AC vent. A person can be heard suggesting that the water is coming from the bathroom as distressed passengers complain about the situation. The accompanying post (originally written in Tamil and translated using Google Translate) claims that the incident was from a Vande Bharat Express train. 

In Fact

After conducting a reverse image search with one of the keyframes from the viral clip, we found multiple news reports involving the video. On July 2, 2019, The Indian Express reported that a viral video showed the interior of the A-1 coach of the Bengaluru-Patna Sanghmitra Express flooded with water. The report also carried a screenshot from the video, which has now been shared as a clip from the Vande Bharat Express train. 

Another news report by Deccan Chronicle, published on July 3, 2019, also mentioned that the incident occurred on the Sanghamitra Superfast Express. The report also carried a tweet from June 29, 2019, by one Sugaya Rai, who shared an extended version of the viral video. In this 45-second video, people can be heard saying that the traveling ticket examiner had arrived at the incident site, but a mechanic was yet to fix the leak. 

The Times of India also covered the incident in a video report published on its YouTube channel on July 2, 2019. The video description read: "Passengers of the Sanghamitra Express first-class coach were bewildered when a stream of water came splashing down from the air-conditioning vent and onto the berths on June 29. The video of the incident shared by passenger Suyagya Rai quickly became viral on social media." The description further said that the incident reportedly took place due to a leakage in a bathroom of the Sanghmitra Express that was on its way from Bengaluru to Patna. These news reports prove that incident took place on the Sanghamitra Superfast Express train, and not the Vande Bharat Express train.

Additionally, we also noticed that the compartment seen in the video has sleeper berths, unlike the Vande Bharat Express trains which only have a chair car sitting arrangement for now. On December 10, 2022, the Hindustan Times reported that the Ministry of Railways is planning to include sleeper berths for long-distance Vande Bharat Express trains, confirming the sleeper berths still have not been included in the semi-high speed trains so far.

While Vande Bharat trains have been involved in some accidents, and their operations have suffered technical snags, no news reports mention a compartment of the semi-high-speed train being flooded. 

The Verdict

A video from a mishap that took place on the Sanghamitra Express in 2019 is being falsely shared now to claim that the video shows water leakage in a Vande Bharat Express train. No such incident has been reported on the latter. Therefore, we mark this claim false.