Video of shark swimming in hurricane floodwaters in Jamaica created with AI
- Published on November 12, 2025 at 15:21
- 2 min read
- By AFP Mexico, AFP Nigeria
- Translation and adaptation Samad UTHMAN
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
The impact of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica in late October devastated the island nation, but an Instagram video purportedly showing a shark swimming through a flooded street in the storm’s aftermath was generated using AI.
“‘Melissa’, a category 5 hurricane has made landfall in Jamaica leading to flooding of streets. Sharks were seen in street floodings (sic),” reads the caption of an Instagram post published on October 29, 2025.
Attached to the post is a short video showing what appears to be a shark in a flooded street.
“Oh my God, the whole sea just came up on the road. Everything is underwater. The waves. keep crashing through the hotels. Look at that. Look, look, that is a shark. That is a shark right there in the street. Lord, please. They're swimming past the cars. They are right below me,” says the narrator in the video.
The claim was shared by an account called “NewsAfro” with more than 200,000 followers. The account shares global news and lifestyle content.
The post has been shared in English elsewhere on Instagram and in Spanish on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and X.
Hurricane Melissa’s violent pass over Jamaica on October 28 spread nearly five million tons of debris, blocking roads and disrupting access to basic services.
The death toll in Jamaica stands at 32, out of a total of 76 deaths throughout the region.
Melissa was one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever hit Jamaica, marking the worst climate disaster in the island’s history.
Despite widespread chaos, the video of a shark in Jamaica is a hoax.
AI-generated video
Using Google Lens reverse image search on keyframes from the Instagram video, AFP Fact Check found the original post published by a TikTok account called “yulian_studios” on October 28, 2025 — a day before the Instagram claim was made.
The post, with a caption in Spanish meaning “This is out of control”, is labelled “AI-generated”.
According to TikTok’s guidelines, such a label means that the content “was either entirely AI-generated or significantly AI-edited.”
The account describes itself (in Spanish) as a “content creator with AI visual effects”.
A review of the account shows that it has posted several pieces of content with the Sora watermark (here, here, and here). Sora is an AI model that creates realistic videos from text prompts.
AFP Fact Check also extracted the audio of the Instagram video and ran it through Hiya, an AI detection tool.
It was rated “as likely AI-generated” with a 97 percent probability.
AFP Fact Check debunked the same claim in Spanish.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
