Old footage from China falsely shared as 'Jiangxi province flooding'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 8, 2022 at 06:10
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

A video has been viewed thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows flooding in the southeast Chinese province of Jiangxi in June 2022. Although hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from southern China after flooding in late June, the clip predates the catastrophe. It was filmed in central China's Henan province, and has circulated on Chinese social media since July 2021.

"A tree was washed away by flood water after heavy rain in Jizzi City, Jiangxi Province. China 06/23/2022," reads a simplified Chinese-language tweet posted on June 25.

Jiangxi is a province in southeast China.

The footage shows water gushing down a flooded street.

Screenshot of a tweet sharing the false claim, taken on July 7, 2022

The video was viewed more than 5,000 times in similar posts in various languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese and Burmese.

Jiangxi issued a red alert for flooding in late June, as floods and landslides in southern China forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.

However, the video shared online was filmed in central China's Henan province and has circulated online since July 2021.

Keyword searches based on signs visible in the video traced the location of the footage to Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the street imagery on Baidu Maps (right).

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the street imagery on Baidu Maps (right)

Further reverse image and keyword searches found the same video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, on July 20, 2021.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the Douyin video (right).

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in the misleading posts (left) and the Douyin video (right)

The Henan-based Douyin user commented on the post in Chinese: "The rainstorm is still falling and my heart is still heavy."

The user posted another video the next day, with two hashtags that translate as "Henan rainstorm help" and "Flooding".

Catastrophic flooding in Henan in summer 2021 killed 398 people and caused economic losses of more than US$10 billion.

There are no cities in China called Jizzi.

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