Misleading: Popular tornado video is old and not filmed in Beijing or Xilinhot
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A popular video on Youtube and Facebook showing a tornado and hailstorm claims Beijing was hit by extreme weather. The posts are accompanied with a political message suggesting the unusual phenomenon is a sign of the end of communist party’s rule in China.
Last week, the same video was posted with the claim that the tornado appeared in the city of Xilinhot in China’s Inner Mongolia.
There is another video showing the same scene from a different angle on Wechat posted on July 4, 2019.
In the video, a red signboard with the word “A Zhe (阿哲)’’ is visible. A street view photo from a food review website Dianping (大眾點評) shows the signboard belongs to a restaurant named “A Zhe Xiao Chuan (阿哲小串).”
Buildings surrounding the restaurant in the photo are identical to those in the video. The eatery is located in Ruifuju (瑞福居) area in Kaiyuan.
An article on the incident, as well as the route map of the tornado that hit Kaiyuan in 2019 provided by a meteorology enthusiast on Weibo, both show Ruifuju was clearly on its path.
Although this video does not show a tornado in Beijing or Xilinhot, according to People’s Daily, Xilinhot did indeed suffer a tornado attack on June 24, 2020.
Meanwhile, CCTV NEWS reported a hailstorm in Mentougou District and Changping District in Beijing on June 25, 2020.
