False: Viral video of bridge collapse in Jiangsu province likely AI-generated
On Feb. 2, an under-construction bridge spanning 95 meters collapsed into the Tongyu River in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, killing five people.
The following day, a Douyin user posted a video, claiming it shows the moment the bridge gave way. The clip quickly drew more than 10,000 likes and 3,200 reposts.
The social media account of a local TV station in Arun Banner, Inner Mongolia, later shared the same video and included parts of it in a news segment before deleting the post.
Annie Lab compared the viral clip with verified surveillance footage of the incident obtained and published by the Chinese news outlet Jimu News. We can confirm that the viral video does not show the real incident.
The comparison revealed clear physical inconsistencies.
The surveillance footage shows the bridge collapsing without its arch bending inward, while the viral version depicts a distorted, inward-bending motion.
Other visual details also do not match the site’s geography.
The viral clip shows a wide waterway with large vessels in the background, but satellite images from Google Earth, updated in November 2025, show the actual site is surrounded by land and villages. Although several small streams run nearby, none of them matches the scale.
Chronological and archival evidence further indicate the clip is inauthentic.
A keyword search led to a file photo (archived here) published by the Shanghai Observer, which appears to have been taken from the bridge’s construction company’s social media account.
The photo, possibly a promotional material showing the bridge, is identical to the opening frame of the viral clip, except for the waterway in the background, which suggests the video may have been created by animating the still image using a generative AI tool (that also added the non-eixting channel in the background).
The original photo seemed to have been removed from the construction company’s official WeChat account after the accident, meanwhile.
Lighting discrepancies also suggest AI-generated manipulation.
The video shows bright daylight just like the still image from the construction company does, but the actual collapse occurred at 5:46 p.m., 16 minutes after the 5:30 p.m, sunset in Yancheng on that day, according to local reports.
The Douyin account that uploaded the video has not responded to our inquiries about the source of the footage.
