Fact Check: Zombie apocalypse in China? No, this is a public transport campaign

Picture this: A zombie apocalypse breaks out in your city while you're riding a metro train. As the train approaches a station, you spot a group of zombies attempting to bite a passenger on the platform. When your train halts, the zombies lumber into your compartment, ready to attack.

This chilling scene appeared in a viral video. Allegedly, however, this video was not from a horror film. Those sharing it claimed that it was shot in northern China and that the individuals acting strangely were infected by some sort of "Zombie Virus."

India Today found that the video is from a zombie-themed event in Indonesia. It is neither from China nor does it show people infected by a virus.

Our Probe

Upon watching the viral video, we noticed that the passengers on the train didn't appear particularly terrified, which is not how people would react in a real-life scenario involving a "zombie attack."

A reverse search of the video's keyframes led us to a media report from August 2022 that contained similar images. According to these reports, the video was part of a campaign to promote public transport in Jakarta, Indonesia. The campaign was called 'Train to Apocalypse,' inspired by the 2016 Korean zombie apocalypse movie "Train To Busan".

Reportedly, the campaign was organised between August 5 and September 11, 2022, by an event company called Pandora Box in partnership with Jakarta’s light rail transit agency. According to the Jakarta Post, Jakarta, with more than 30 million people, faces severe pollution and some of the world's worst traffic congestion. Its light rapid transit system only began commercial operation in December 2019.

A video about the event with visuals similar to the now-viral video was uploaded on September 12, 2022, to the YouTube channel of the Philippines-based media company Inquirer. The video was credited to the news agency AFP. The South China Morning Post also published a video story about the campaign where the participants could be heard sharing their experiences.

Several people from Indonesia also shared videos from their trip to the “Train to Apocalypse”.

A different video from the same campaign circulated with similar claims in 2022, and India Today fact-checked it at the time. It is, therefore, clear that the video in question does not depict an apocalyptic virus turning people into zombies in China.