Was this winding road built within 24 hours after typhoon hit Japan?
- By AFP -
- Oct 25, 2019
A photo of a winding road has been shared repeatedly in multiple Facebook and Twitter posts alongside a claim that it was built within 24 hours of Typhoon Hagibis hitting Japan in October 2019.
The claim is false: the photo shows a temporary road constructed in two months after a Japanese highway was damaged by a landslide in July 2018.
The photo was published in a Facebook post on October 14, 2019.
It has been shared 50 times.
Below is the screenshot of the misleading post:
The post’s Indonesian-language caption translates to English as:
“An emergency bridge was built within 24 hours as the highway was blocked by a landslide. This incident happened after a typhoon hit Japan. Constructing a bridge only in 24 hours, amazing.
“Source: Karma Zopa.”
The English text superimposed on the image states: “Emergency road constructed in Japan within 24 hours so as to maintain flow of traffic after the main one was being covered by landslide.
“How many hours will this be fixed in your own country?”
Typhoon Hagibis hit Japan on October 12, 2019, triggering landslides and floods. At least 74 people were killed and dozens remain missing, according to this AFP report.
It is also shared alongside a similar claim in Arabic here and here, as well as in Khmer here and here.
The claim is false. The image shows a temporary road constructed in the two months after a landslide damaged a highway in Fukui city, Japan, in July 2018.
A reverse image search for the image in the misleading post on Yandex followed by subsequent keyword search found this image of the temporary road published in a tweet on March 22, 2019.
The caption of the post says that the road was a national highway in Fukui city.
走ってみました。 pic.twitter.com/iz1yGUOUxs
— カタヤマ (@kata104) March 22, 2019
Fukui city is the capital of Fukui prefecture.
National Route 305 in Ikura-cho, Fukui city, was damaged by a landslide which was triggered by heavy rain hitting west Japan in July 2018. A temporary road was subsequently constructed, according to a report by Japanese media Fukui Shimbun on October 27, 2018, here.
Fukui Shimbun also published this report on November 1, 2018, stating that the construction of the temporary road had been completed and was open to the public.
Below is a screenshot of a photo of the road in the report:
The construction of the temporary road was completed within two months from August 27, 2018, to October 31, 2018, according to this local government document, praising the local officials in charge of the construction.