Video game footage falsely shared as Dubai storm that caused deadly floods

Published on May 9, 2024 at 05:46
3 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

Record rains caused deadly flooding in the Middle East's financial centre Dubai in April 2024, but a clip of fierce winds destroying buildings did not show the disaster. The video, repeatedly shared online in multiple languages, was posted months before the Dubai floods on a YouTube page that regularly published video game footage.

"What did Dubai do wrong to deserve this," read part of a Korean-language Facebook post that shared the clip on April 18, a day after devastating rains caused massive flooding in large parts of the city.

Four people died in the United Arab Emirates after it was battered by the heaviest rainfall since records began for the desert Gulf state while 21 people died in neighbouring Oman.

An expert group of scientists said global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions "most likely" exacerbated the intense rains.

The clip -- overlaid with text that said "Dubai" -- appeared to show heavy winds toppling several vehicles and blowing away building signs.

Screenshot of the false post shared on Facebook. Captured May 7, 2024

The clip was also shared with a similar claim elsewhere on Facebook as well as on YouTube in posts written in Hindi and English.

The claim, however, is false.

Video game

A Google reverse search using a keyframe, followed by keyword searches, found the clip corresponded to a video posted on YouTube on October 21, 2023, six months before the storm in Dubai (archived link).

The YouTube video was titled: "Teardown Hurricane storm destruction 1."

The YouTube post included a link to the video game "Teardown", a sandbox puzzle developed by the studio Tuxedo Labs in 2022 (archived link).

According to its description on the video game distribution service Steam, Teardown offers a "simulated and fully destructible voxel world" in which users can "tear down walls with vehicles or explosives" or "use the environment to your advantage in the most creative way you can think of" (archived link).

Below are screenshot comparisons between the clip shared in the false posts (left) and the video shared on YouTube (right):

Screenshot comparisons between the footage shared in the misleading posts (left) and the original footage shared on YouTube (right)

An analysis of the YouTube video found some of the vehicles shown had blocky textures, indicating they were digitally created and not genuine as shown in the screenshot below:

Screenshot of the vehicles seen in the clip, with blocky textures marked in red by AFP

The video also featured various Japanese text, including one sign on the right that read Shibuya-ku, a major commercial ward of Tokyo (archived link).

The YouTube channel that shared the video previously published other content labelled "Teardown" featuring the same "Shibuya" landscape, including here and here (archived links here and here).

Footage seen on Steam and other websites shows similar vehicles and destructible environments as seen in the clip from the false posts.

AFP has debunked more false posts about the Dubai floods here.

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