False: This video does not show China using livestock transport trucks to move people to quarantine
A tweet posted on Nov. 7 contained a video that supposedly shows the Chinese authorities are using livestock transport trucks to move people to quarantine facilities.
As of this writing, the video has earned over 32.7k views. The same video was also uploaded on YouTube with a claim, “Chinese cattle trucks are filled with people who have been forcibly quarantined.”
Similar claims have also been posted on Twitter in Chinese, English, and Japanese.
However, this claim is false. The video has nothing to do with COVID-19. It shows people being evacuated from flood-hit areas.
Annie Lab found a longer version of the same video on Douyin dated on Oct. 12. The title indicates the video was shot in Xinjiang County (新绛县), Shanxi province.
The viral clip shared on Twitter only shows the part of the video with people standing inside the cramped truck.
But the longer clip on Douyin shows flooded streets behind the truck.
Other Douyin users also posted videos about a cattle transport truck with people in them.
One post on Oct. 8 seems to be from a local resident who was inside a truck herself.
This video was quoted by some Chinese news media reporting on the floods in Xinjiang, Shanxi.
This clip uploaded on Oct. 7 shows a truck wading through the floods, with the tires almost submerged in the floodwaters.
Comparing the features of the truck seen in the three videos, Annie Lab noticed all have the same three layers of partition with a white rope tied across them.
The three videos all show what appears to be the same white rope stretching from the front to the back.
What looks like a red container with a white cover could also be seen inside the truck, indicating that all these clips show the same livestock transport truck.
Annie Lab was also able to geolocate the place in the video by searching the names on the billboards seen in the background.
This area is indeed in Xinjiang Country in Shanxi province.
Since the beginning of October, heavy rainfalls in Shanxi province have caused flooding and landslides. Both SCMP and CNN have reported on this.
An article by Xinhua said a portion of Shanxi, especially Xinjiang County, suffered its worst flooding in 40 years.
Videos circulating on social media suggest not only a cattle transport truck but also an excavator as well as lifeboats were used to bring people to safety.
