The image emerged days after 48 people were killed when the Meilong Highway in southern China’s Guangdong province collapsed on May 1, 2024, following days of heavy rain.
More than two dozen vehicles drove into a nearly 60-foot gash in the asphalt and crashed onto the steep slope below, in what Chinese state media called a “geological natural disaster.”
Guangdong, a densely populated industrial powerhouse in southern China, was hit by a series of disasters that month that were blamed on extreme weather conditions.
Similar claims about the highway’s poor construction circulated with the same photo on Facebook and X and in an article by Taiwanese news channel Newtalk.
But the cause of the disaster is under investigation, according to a May 4 report from state broadcaster CCTV, which said the Guangdong provincial government had formed a response team (archived link).
Meanwhile, a reverse image search on Google revealed that the photo shared in the fake posts predated the Guangdong highway collapse.
Collapse of the old road
AFP found the photo shared in fake messages in a June 16, 2011 report by China’s state news agency Xinhua (archived link).
The news report is titled: “Landslide disrupts traffic on Hangxinjing Highway” – referring to a road in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
According to the photo caption, the photo shows part of the highway on June 15, 2011 after it collapsed.
The landslide affected 80 meters (260 feet) of highway, although no casualties were reported, Xinhua said.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo used in the fake messages (left) and the photo from Xinhua (right):
The photo from Xinhua shows a building that matches one on the same highway stretch in Zhejiang as seen on the Baidu map.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo published by Xinhua (left) and an image from Baidu Map (right) with the building highlighted:
