Old clips of Indonesian leader misrepresented as train crash site visit

After 16 passengers — all women — were killed in a train collision in Indonesia’s West Java Province, a compilation was shared in posts falsely claiming it showed President Prabowo Subianto visiting the scene. The footage is in fact from 2025, when Prabowo inaugurated a new train station building in Jakarta.

“President Prabowo visited Bekasi Timur Station to see the train condition for himself,” says part of the Indonesian-language text on a TikTok video shared on April 28, 2026.

The video, which was viewed more than 89,000 times, shows several clips of Prabowo on a train and at a station.

A collision at West Java’s Bekasi Timur Station on the evening of April 27 claimed 16 lives — all of whom were  in the last, women-only carriage of a commuter train (archived link). Officials said the long-distance Argo Bromo Anggrek train smashed into the commuter train, which had come to a standstill on the tracks after it was clipped by a taxi on a level crossing (archived link).

The video’s caption encourages users to visit a file sharing site linked to the TikTok account’s profile to see more footage of victims being evacuated from the collision.

The compilation was also shared in similar TikTok posts.

“He cares,” says a comment on one of the posts.

Another asked: “What is he doing there?”

Prabowo has visited victims of the collision at the Bekasi Regional General Hospital, offered his condolences to relatives of the deceased, and said he had ordered an immediate investigation (archived link).

But there have been no official reports of the president going to inspect the site.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared compilation found most of the clips were taken from a longer video posted on the official YouTube account of the Presidential Secretariat on November 4, 2025 (archived link).

The video is titled, “LIVE: President Prabowo Inaugurates New Tanah Abang Station, Jakarta, November 4, 2025″.

On the day of the visit, Prabowo went to Manggarai Station in South Jakarta before riding a train to Tanah Abang Station in Central Jakarta for the ceremony. Tanah Abang Station is around 34 kilometres (21 miles) away from Bekasi Timur Station, where the April 2026 crash happened.

The footage matches a photo an AFP reporter took of the gates at Manggarai Station on April 29, 2026.

One of the clips used in the falsely shared video is not lifted from the Presidential Secretariat’s video, but a comparison with the official footage shows it was taken from the same event albeit from a different angle.

AFP has previously debunked other false claims targeting the Indonesian president.