AI-manipulated images of 'flood relief train' in Thailand mislead online
- Published on December 3, 2025 at 08:48
- 3 min read
- By Pasika KHERNAMNUOY, AFP Thailand
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Severe flooding in southern Thailand has killed at least 267 people, with most of the fatalities reported from Hat Yai, the kingdom's largest city in the south. But altered images of relief vehicles transported by train shared online are in fact AI-generated. Google's detection tool indicated the images were created with its AI model, while AFP found parts of the fabricated visuals were overlaid onto unrelated train videos.
"A volunteer team with an ambulance and more than five boats from the Mae Jo rescue team and RKU firefighters being sent from Chiang Mai province to Hat Yai district," reads part of the Thai-language Facebook post published on November 25, 2025.
The post was shared by a Facebook page with 400,000 followers and features three images of freight trains apparently transporting rubber boats, speedboats and fire trucks.
It circulated as severe flooding from torrential rain struck several provinces in southern Thailand, displacing tens of thousands of people and leaving at least 267 people dead, with 142 of them in the hardest-hit Hat Yai city, authorities told AFP (archived link).
The government has rolled out relief measures, but there has been growing public criticism of the flood response, and two local officials have been suspended over their alleged failures.
Much of Asia is in its annual monsoon season, but the flooding that inundated Thailand, along with Indonesia and Malaysia, was also exacerbated by a rare tropical storm that dumped heavy rain on Sumatra island in particular.
Climate change has also increased the intensity of storms, and produced more heavy rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.
The images of the purported relief train spread across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X, with several users who appeared to believe they were genuine.
"The cargo was beautiful," one user commented.
Another wrote: "We Thai people, regardless of which region we live in, don't abandon each other. Thank you on behalf of everyone affected."
However, there were no freight trains scheduled from Chiang Mai to the southern Songkhla province on November 24, an officer from the State Railway of Thailand told AFP. Its public relations department dismissed the claim as "fake news."
Reverse image searches on Google found the images were manipulated with AI.
The same images were shared in a November 24 Facebook post which features an "AI Info" label applied by the platform on its app (archived here and here).
A star-shaped watermark on the lower-right corner of the images also indicates they were generated using Google's AI assistant Gemini (archived link).
The user did not respond to AFP's request for comments.
Google's SynthID Detector -- a tool launched in May 2025 to identify AI-generated content -- identified with a "Very High" degree of confidence that the images were created with the help of its AI tools (archived link).
The backgrounds of the images match scenes from unrelated footage of trains shared years earlier on YouTube, but the cargo has been replaced using AI.
The scene used in the first image appears at the 2:23-minute mark of a YouTube video published on December 25, 2021 (archived link). The original video shows the freight train's cargo are tanks instead of rescue vehicles.
The voiceover explained the footage shows a special military train traveling on a detour track between stations located in the northern and central regions of Thailand.
The scene in the second image is similar to the 1:46 and 4:08 marks of a YouTube video titled "Various trains in the afternoon and changes at Photharam Station," uploaded on December 13, 2022 (archived link).
AFP has debunked other AI-generated visuals misrepresented as recent floods in Thailand.
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