Is there currently a zombie outbreak in China? No, that's not true: the video showing the zombie outbreak was taken from an Indonesian zombie-themed event inspired by a South Korean film "Train to Busan."
According to an Instagram post, the Jakarta LRT organized a paid event in collaboration with Pandora Box, an Indonesian escape room organizer, inspired by the 2016 South Korean film "Train to Busan" as a marketing strategy to encourage young Indonesians to use public transport more often.
The claim initially appeared on TikTok (archived here) on May 6, 2023. The video depicts a woman groaning and screaming at what appear to be panicked people inside a train. The caption of the post reads:
"Is it true that zombies have appeared in China?"
This is what the TikTok video looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed May 17 17:04:27 2023 UTC)
The claim has also been debunked by AP News' fact-checking team, showing that the location of the video was actually in Jakarta, Indonesia, rather than China.
The model of the train in the background of the video also matches the interior design and structure of the Jakarta LRT rather than most Chinese Metros:
(Source: The Jakarta Post)
(Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Pandora Box's Instagram and TikTok channels also have several videos that show the event in detail. Most of the promotional videos shared by Pandora Box depict all event-goers wearing blue-strapped IDs and the actors groaning and screaming in a zombie-like manner.
