Clips show storms in Kansas and Vietnam, not 'Texas twister in January 2025'

Published on February 17, 2025 at 09:24
3 min read
By Felix NATHANIEL, AFP Indonesia

As destructive wildfires burned through southern California, clips of storms were shared in Indonesian social media posts that falsely claimed they showed another disaster affecting the United States -- a tornado sweeping through Texas -- in January 2025. The footage used in the false posts in fact shows a tornado that tracked through Kansas in April 2022 and the impact of Typhoon Yagi on Vietnam in September 2024.

"After Los Angeles, now Texas is hit by a tornado disaster," reads part of the Indonesian-language text overlay on a TikTok video shared on January 19, 2025.

The video, which has been viewed 1.3 million times, comprises two clips -- one showing a tornado as it barrels into an intersection, and the other showing turbulent winds buffeting buildings, vehicles and trees along a city street.

The overlaid Indonesian-language text also suggests without elaborating that the storm is "karma" for Donald Trump, who at the time was US president-elect.

Screenshot of misinformation post, taken on February 13, 2025

Similar videos were shared alongside similar claims in posts on SnackVideo.

The posts surfaced as the United States' second-largest city Los Angeles grappled with devastating wildfires that killed about 30 people and displaced thousands more (archived link).

The fires burned more than 150 square kilometres (37,000 acres) and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

The videos circulating online, however, do not show another natural disaster that struck the United States in January 2025.

Old storm footage

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first falsely shared clip led to the same footage posted on YouTube on May 16, 2022 (archived link).

The YouTube video is titled, "Andover, Kansas Tornado Video 2 – 4/29/2022".

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the YouTube video from April 2022 (right)

The footage matches Google Street View imagery from Andover, Kansas (archived here).

According to the US National Weather Service, the Andover tornado was produced by storms that developed across central and northeast Kansas on April 29, 2022 (archived link). It said the tornado caused extensive damage and there were three injuries directly related to the twister.

A separate reverse image search on Russian search engine Yandex found the second clip used in the false posts previously circulated in September 2024.

The same footage was shared on TikTok on September 7, 2024 in a post about the impact of Typhoon Yagi on Ha Long, Vietnam (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the TikTok video from September 2024 (right)

The footage matches Google Street View imagery from Ha Long (archived link).

Typhoon Yagi battered northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar in early September 2024, triggering floods and landslides that left more than 700 people dead (archived link).

A total of 299 people were killed and 34 reported missing in Vietnam, which put the economic losses caused by the deadly typhoon at $3.3 billion.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there were no tornadoes in Texas in January 2025 (archived here).

AFP has previously debunked similar claims that relied on unrelated storm footage here and here.

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