Old video of flooding in Brazil falsely linked to Cyclone Freddy in Africa

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on March 20, 2023 at 13:16
  • 2 min read
  • By James OKONG'O, AFP Kenya

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After Cyclone Freddy recently ripped through the African countries of Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi in a rare second landfall, a video emerged on social media alongside claims that it showed floods caused by the storm. But this is false: the footage is old and unrelated to the cyclone, featuring flooding in southern Brazil.

"This is happening in Malawi," reads a tweet (archived here) published with a video on March 14, 2023.

The footage shows dirty water pouring out of a building and gushing down a backyard.

Screenshot showing the false tweet, taken on March 15, 2023

The tweet has received more than 500 comments, many of them taking the claim at face value.

"Today's Malawi, Kenia, Tanzania and all East Africa have been flooding since 15,000 years ago," one user wrote.

The same clip was published in a separate tweet (archived here) with a claim that it shows flooding in Mozambique.

Deadly Freddy

The death toll from Cyclone Freddy rose above 200 on March 14, 2023, after mudslides and floods were triggered in Mozambique and Malawi.

Freddy, set to become the world’s longest-lasting storm, hit the two African countries on March 12 and 13 respectively for the second time within a few weeks, making a comeback after it first arrived in late February.

Malawi bore the brunt of the second landfall, with at least 225 recorded deaths.

The UN said that Cyclone Freddy got its start in Australia in early February.

But the video shared above does not show flooding caused by the cyclone in Malawi or Mozambique.

2022 Brazil floods

Using the InVID-WeVerify video verification tool, AFP Fact Check tracked down the original footage.

The video was recorded during the devastating floods that hit parts of Brazil in December 2022. The footage was also published on TV São Bernardo’s official Facebook account (archived here) on December 3, 2022.

The news organisation reported that the video showed a flooded house in Nova Petropolis — a municipality in southern Brazil.

"The video was recorded by our staff in one of the houses at Joao Infante Street in Nova Petropolis in December last year," TV São Bernardo confirmed to AFP Fact Check.

A closer look at the clips shared in the false tweets shows that the original footage was lifted from TV São Bernardo’s TikTok account @tv.sbc.

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