Thousands of people are losing their lives daily all over the globe due to the novel Coronavirus infection that probably emerged from a wet market in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Multiple images and videos showing hundreds and thousands of corpses left together claiming to be that of the COVID-19 victims from different parts of the world have also surfaced online.
While many have been proved not to be associated with the novel Coronavirus, three photos showing dozens of body bags kept together have started doing the rounds on social media. The photos are going viral claiming to be that of the bodies of COVID-19 victims in Pakistan.
Fact check
However, it has been understood that the claim associated with the latest viral image is false as the picture shows the covered corpses of people who died after a severe heatwave in Pakistan way back in 2015, that is five years before the emergence of Coronavirus pandemic.
Two of the images have been captured by AFP photographer Rizwan Tabassum and show welfare volunteers burying and offering funeral prayers for the victims in Karachi during the mass funeral on June 26, 2015. Meanwhile, one of the images shared along with the misleading posts was published by the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on June 22, 2015. According to reports, the extreme temperature in the country had claimed the lives of as many as 1,000 people at that time.
Similar fake photos that went viral
Similarly, a photo claiming to be the 'dead bodies' lying on the streets in Italy with no one to remove them had recently gone viral on social media. However, it was later proved to have no connection with the Coronavirus pandemic in the European country as the picture was captured on March 24, 2014, in Frankfurt, Germany as part of an art project remembering all the people who died in the Nazi concentration camp.
Meanwhile, a video showing 'dead bodies' being dumped into a pit in Italy, again said to be due to Coronavirus, had also surfaced online. But the viral clip is actually taken from a television series named Pandemic released in the US in 2007. At the same time, multiple photos showing many coffins arranged together in a hall was also shared by many netizens claiming to be from Italy after the COVID-19 outbreak. They were also proved to be not associated with the COVID-19 outbreak.
Also, a video showing the dead bodies at Libyan beach shared as corpses of Coronavirus victims had also gone viral online with an advisory on not to eat seafood as the novel virus can spread through the water. However, it was later found to be an old video of African immigrants who died after their boat collapsed on the shore of the Libyan sea.
