Lighthouse Journalism found a video circulating widely on social media, allegedly showing a recent boat capsize in Goa, India, where it was claimed that 23 people had died, 40 were rescued, and 64 remained missing. However, upon investigation, we found that the video was not from Goa, but from a boat accident in Congo.
Claim:
X user Shree Krishna Paul shared the video with a misleading claim on their X profile.
Check the archive version of the post here.
Other users too are sharing the same post.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by uploading the video in the InVid tool and obtaining screengrabs. We ran a reverse image search on the screen grabs from this video.
Through this we found a reel on the Instagram account of TRTHABER.
The caption said (translation): The image of the boat tragedy in which 78 people lost their lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo has emerged.
We also found the same video on YouTube. The video was uploaded 2 days ago.
We also found the video on other YouTube accounts too.
The video was also shared by YouTube channels of media organisations.
We also found news reports about this tragic accident on several websites of media organisations.
The reports said: GOMA, Congo — At least 78 people died when an overcrowded boat capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern Congo on Thursday, a local governor said. A frantic search and rescue operation was underway hours later as many remained unaccounted for from the vessel, believed to have had 278 people on board.
During the investigation we also found a post by Goa Police handle on X.
The handle clarified that the claim was false.
Conclusion: Viral video of a boat capsize in Goa is actually from Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. The widespread claims about the Goa incident are misleading.
