Old video misrepresented as rescue footage from deadly 2026 floods in China
- Published on July 16, 2026 at 05:57
- 2 min read
- By Sammy HEUNG, AFP Hong Kong
After heavy rains in China's southern Guangxi region left at least 39 people dead in early July 2026, social media posts recirculated an old video falsely claiming it showed a man pulling a few people from a car submerged in the latest flooding to safety. The clip was in fact filmed in a different city in Guangxi in 2025.
"During the floods in Guangxi, people were trapped inside their car, some citizens braved the danger to smash the windows and rescue them. #ccp #china #Guangxi #Nanning #Guigang," says a simplified Chinese Instagram post published on July 12, 2026.
The hashtags refer to Guangxi's capital Nanning and the city of Guigang, both of which were affected by the extreme weather that wreaked havoc on southern and central China in early July (archived link).
The attached video shows a man smashing the window of a car trapped in a flash flood, before pulling a few people out.
Its voiceover features a man recounting how he rescued the passengers.
Torrential rain and severe flooding from Typhoon Maysak have killed at least 39 people in the region as of July 9, with 26 of the deaths linked to a dam breach at Liulan reservoir, state news agency Xinhua reported (archived link).
The nearby Guigang city was also affected by the floods.
Another tropical storm Bavi hit eastern China in the same month, where authorities had evacuated nearly two million people in its path, but there are no immediate reports of casualties (archived link).
Similar claims have spread on TikTok, Facebook, Threads, X and Reddit.
But the falsely shared footage was in fact filmed during flooding in the Teng County, instead of the nearby Nanning and Guigang cities in Guangxi, in 2025 (archived link).
A reverse image search on Google using screenshots found state outlet CCTV published the same footage on August 5, 2025 (archived link).
"August 4. Teng County, Wuzhou City, Guangxi experienced heavy rainfall. A car was swept backwards by the rushing current and became trapped in a flooded section of the road. Bystanders noticed someone trapped inside the vehicle and quickly called on neighbours to help," the caption says.
"They put a flatbed truck near the car to form a 'bridge' and smashed the window to rescue them."
A keyword search on Google found a news report that mentioned the names of the three men who rescued the passengers (archived link).
Separate keyword searches of the names on Weibo and Baidu found follow-up video interviews with one of the men by local media and CCTV (archived here and here).
"I don't think what I did was impressive. Anyone would do the same in the same situation," the man surnamed Wu said.
The Teng County authorities also published an interview on its official WeChat channel with him in February 2026 when officials visited underprivileged communities in the region (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the floods in China.
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