Old clip falsely linked to fatal tour boat accident in Vietnam's Ha Long Bay

Published on July 23, 2025 at 04:03
3 min read
By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Thailand

An old video of a ferry capsizing after being battered by strong winds and waves has been recirculated by social media users who falsely claim it shows a deadly tourist boat sinking during a storm in Vietnam's Ha Long Bay on July 19, 2025. The clip was published earlier in Vietnamese media reports about the impact of Typhoon Yagi in September 2024, one of the region's strongest storms that year.

"Vietnam: A tourist boat sank while traveling in Ha Long Bay after facing strong sudden winds from storm Wipha, causing 34 fatalities,” reads the Thai-language caption on an X post dated July 19, 2025.

The caption continues: "Authorities are urgently searching for dozens of missing individuals."

The post includes a video of a boat being lashed by wind and rain before slowly tilting to the right and capsizing.

At least 35 people were killed when the tourist boat capsized during a storm on July 19 in what some have called Ha Long Bay's worst disaster (archived link).

Screenshot of the false X post, with a red X added by AFP

However, local media quoted the director of the country's National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting saying the thunderstorms in northern Vietnam were not caused by the influence of Tropical Storm Wipha in the South China Sea.

The same video of the boat sinking was linked to the July disaster elsewhere on X and Facebook, as well as in English and Burmese-language posts.

But a reverse image search on Google found the video was published online months earlier in reports about a different storm.

The footage was published on the verified Facebook page of Vietnamese media outlet VTC News on September 7, 2024 with the caption "Tourist boat capsizing in Ha Long Bay" (archived link).

Screenshot comparison between the false X post (L) and the video posted on Facebook by VTC News

Other Vietnamese media outlets published the clip in reports from September 7 and 8, 2024 about storm number three -- the local name for Typhoon Yagi (archived links here and here).

The super typhoon killed at least 197 people in Vietnam as its associated heavy rains brought flooding and caused landslides. Thousands more had to be evacuated as the storm disrupted export lines across the Red River delta (archived link).

Shipwreck Log, a blog that documents shipwrecks and maritime accidents, reported that several boats were damaged or sunk as Typhoon Yagi made a landfall in Vietnam and included the same footage of the black and white ship sinking (archived link).

The tourist ferry that capsized in July 2025 can be seen in AFP photos that show a blue and white vessel with different railings.

Screenshot comparison between the video in the false posts (L) and the AFP photo

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