Dramatic mudslide clip filmed in Japan, not Pakistan

Published on August 20, 2025 at 10:32
3 min read
By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan

Relentless rains across northern Pakistan have triggered deadly flooding and landslides, but footage of thick mud crashing onto buildings does not show the recent situation in the South Asian nation. The clip, featured in a compilation with thousands of views, was shot in the Japanese town of Atami in July 2021.

"May Allah protect all of us from natural calamities. Amen," reads the Urdu-language caption of a Facebook video viewed more than 11,000 times since it was shared on August 16, 2025.

The caption includes hashtags for areas in Pakistan's mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where torrential monsoon rains have triggered deadly flooding and landslides (archived link).

The video comprises several clips, with the first showing mud and debris crashing down a hillside.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 18, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

Similar compilations were also shared on Instagram and X posts, as northern Pakistan was ravaged by an unusually intense monsoon season that has left more than 400 people dead (archived link).

The monsoon season brings about three-quarters of South Asia's annual rainfall, which is vital for agriculture and food security but also causes widespread destruction.

The rains that have battered Pakistan have caused flooding and landslides that have swept away entire villages, leaving many residents trapped in the rubble and hundreds missing.

But the clip used at the beginning of the circulating compilation was not filmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the clip led to the same footage shared by Japanese outlet Sankei News on YouTube on July 3, 2021 (archived link).

The longer footage in the old report is credited to wire agency EyePress.

Its caption indicates it shows a mudslide sweeping through the Izusan neighbourhood of Atami, a town in Japan's Shizuoka prefecture, on July 3, 2021.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the Sankei News video (right)

The video corresponds to Google Street View imagery of the town, located around 90 kilometres (55 miles) southwest of Tokyo (archived link).

AFP reported that torrents of mud crashed through part of the town following days of heavy rain (archived link). The devastating landslide killed 27 people.

The video has been misrepresented several times on social media as showing unrelated disasters.

Other clips in the compilation depict raging floodwaters and buildings being toppled over.

While AFP was unable to verify if they all show the impact of the monsoon rains on northern Pakistan in August 2025, at least one of the clips is several years old.

The video of a muddy torrent furiously gushing across buildings has circulated on Facebook and YouTube since at least August 2022 (archived here and here).

The latter post says it was taken in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Swat district.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the video posted in 2022 (right)

Monsoon rains in 2022 submerged a third of the country and resulted in approximately 1,700 deaths.

AFP reported at the time that many rivers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had burst their banks, demolishing scores of buildings including a 150-room hotel that crumbled into a raging torrent (archived link).

Officials said that year's monsoon flooding affected more than 33 million people -- one in seven Pakistanis -- destroying or badly damaging nearly a million homes.

AFP earlier debunked another false claim about the recent monsoon flooding in Pakistan here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail