Videos of past typhoons misleadingly shared as impact of Typhoon Doksuri in July 2023
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 16, 2023 at 06:27
- 4 min read
- By Sophia KONG, AFP Hong Kong
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The simplified Chinese caption of the post reads: "After the storm that barely caused any damage in Taiwan arrived in China ...," followed by three clips of severe rainstorms lashing buildings and trees and huge waves that battered a shoreline.
The post then goes on to suggest the videos show scenes from Jinjiang city in the Fujian province in southeast China.
The clips were published on Twitter -- which is being rebranded as "X" -- on July 28 as more than 400,000 people were evacuated before Typhoon Doksuri slammed into the province, bringing colossal waves to coastal areas and strong gusts to the cities, AFP reported (archived link).
Doksuri also brought the most severe rainfall in 140 years to northern China even after it weakened into a storm, with the death toll from subsequent flooding reaching more than 70 (archived link).
The videos have also been shared alongside the same misleading claim on X in simplified Chinese, English here and here, and Turkish, as well as on YouTube and on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Chinese news aggregator site NetEase, Hong Kong newspaper The Singtao Daily and Bulgarian newspaper Trud also used screenshots from the videos in their reports about Typhoon Doksuri.
While the third clip of strong waves hitting buildings along the coast shared in the misleading post shows the impact of Typhoon Doksuri on July 28, 2023 -- as seen in a video by Henan Television's Legal Channel posted on Weibo here -- the other two clips were in fact filmed when typhoons Hato and In-fa hit China in 2017 and 2021 respectively (archived link).
Old typhoon clips
Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Baidu found the first clip was published in a report by broadcaster Liaoning TV on the Chinese video streaming site Tencent Video on July 21, 2021 (archive link).
The caption, written in simplified Chinese, reads: "Typhoon Cempaka slams into Guangdong, residents make light of situation and commute by swimming."
The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported more than 100,000 people were evacuated before Typhoon Cempaka made landfall in the Guangdong province -- the first to hit the Chinese coast in 2021 (archive link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the same scenes as seen in the report by Liaoning TV (right):
The video was also used in reports by the state-owned Passion News on July 20, 2021 and Hainan Radio and Television Station on July 23, 2021 (archived links here and here).
A keyword search also reveals the second video of trees being blown about in strong winds was published in a Foshan News report published on August 23, 2017 (archived link).
The simplified Chinese headline reads: "Typhoon Hato makes landfall in Zhuhai, with level 14 windspeeds at its centre at the time."
Severe Typhoon Hato left 16 dead after it slammed into southern China, Hong Kong and Macau on August 23, 2017 (archived link).
Below are screenshot comparisons of the video as seen in the misleading post (left) and in the Foshan News report (right):
Nanfang Daily Newspaper also included the same video in its report on Typhoon Hato on August 23, 2017 (archived link).
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