In western Kenya, homeowners living around Lake Victoria utilize a network of water buses to shuttle bus from the coast to the lake’s islands. Just recently, 2 images appeared online along with a claim that they revealed these water buses. Nevertheless, this claim is incorrect: the images, which go back to 2009, reveal an amphibious automobile integrated in Malta. The Lake Victoria water buses just run on the water.
A post making the claim has actually been shared more than 650 times considering that it was released on Facebook on Might 21, 2024.
“Water bus in Lake Victoria crossing from Homa-bay to Rusinga (KENYA),” checks out the post’s caption.
Homa Bay is a municipality situated on the coasts of Lake Victoria, roughly 300 kilometres from the capital city of Nairobi (archived here).
Rusinga Island is a little island in Lake Victoria.
For more than a years, InfraCo Africa water buses have actually supplied transport services on Lake Victoria, shuttling homeowners in between the mainland and the various islands (archived here).
However, the images flowing on social networks do disappoint these water buses.
Amphibious automobile
Through a reverse image search, we discovered the 2 images released by the UK tabloid Daily Mail in 2009 (archived here).
According to media reports released at the time (see here in English and here in Romanian), these images reveal an AmphiCoach – an amphibious bus developed to take a trip on both land and sea that was integrated in Malta.
An authorities from Kisumu County informed AFP Truth Examine that the images shared on social networks do disappoint the water buses in usage on Lake Victoria.
InfraCo Africa, a business based in Kisumu, makes the water buses utilized on Lake Victoria. The business informed AFP Truth Examine that their boat are not amphibious.
“The images do disappoint the buses we made which are exclusively utilized on water. Pictures of our water buses can be discovered on our site,” stated InfraCo Africa.
Leading Kenyan news organisation Country Media Group likewise released a clip on its YouTube channel including among the water buses running on Lake Victoria (archived here).
Apart from the water buses run by InfraCo Africa, the lake likewise has ferryboats run by other business (archived here).