KATHMANDU: Nepal’s major cities including Kathmandu and Pokhara are blanketed by the smoke from the raging wildfires across the country over the last few days. In the absence of strong winds, the smog remains suspended over the Nepali sky.
On March 26, Kathmandu was ranked the world’s most polluted city, by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.
The severe air pollution has forced the government to close schools in many districts including the capital, Kathmandu, for four days. Flights to and from Kathmandu and other airports have been suspended or diverted due to poor visibility.
Social media users have taken to Twitter and Facebook to draw the world’s attention to the disaster. On March 31, #PrayforNepal hashtag trended on Twitter.
Social media users have shared various pictures of the wildfires. The photos have been shared here, here on Twitter and here, here on Facebook. But we found that some of these photos are misleading. They were from other countries.
South Asia Check has fact-checked four of the photos circulating on social media.
So it is now clear that the social media users shared misleading photos of wildfires from the US, Canada and Indonesia portraying them as Nepal’s photos.
(This report first appeared in southasiacheck.org)
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