Video claims to show woman falling into sinkhole at Rampath, Ayodhya. Here’s the truth

A video that is being widely circulated online claims to show a woman falling into a sinkhole on the newly-constructed Rampath in Ayodhya. The blurred footage shows the road caving in as the woman walks on it. She falls into a hole filled with water and is helped out by people who rush to her aid.

The video is being circulated online with claims that the incident took place in Ayodhya after the first rainfall of the season. The Rampath was constructed ahead of the highly-publicised inauguration of Ram Temple in January this year. However, barely a few months later, there were reports of waterlogging and road cave-ins at Rampath.

The video of the woman falling into the sinkhole was also widely shared online with claims that she was walking on Rampath, Ayodhya after the rains when the road caved in.

What is the truth?

The video in question is actually from Brazil, not Ayodhya.

When Hindustan Times performed a simple reverse image search using Google, it became clear that the footage in question has been circulating on social media since 2022.

Digging a little deeper revealed that the video was filmed at Cascavel, Fortaleza in Brazil. According to a local news website named Go Outside, it shows 48-year-old Maria Rosilene Almeida de Souza being swallowed by the water-filled sinkhole.

Maria was walking on a sidewalk – not a road – in June 2022 when she fell into the sinkhole.

The woman said she did not notice the orange traffic cones placed near the area to warn passersby. “When I realized it, I was already in the water. The hole was deep, and I was lucky that it was full of water, because I went there after it dried up and saw that there were a lot of rocks,” she said. Maria, who works as a street cleaner for the Cascavel City Hall, escaped with minor injuries.