AI-generated video falsely linked to deadly floods in India
- Published on July 16, 2026 at 10:52
- 2 min read
- By Vishesh SINGH, AFP India
As deadly monsoon downpours inundated the western Indian city of Surat in July 2026, social media users circulated a video with a false claim it was aerial footage showing the flooded city. The clip contains visual signs it is fabricated, while detection tools have flagged it as AI-generated.
"Surat's flood captured on drone camera, city submerged in three to four feet (0.9 to 1.2 metres) of water; hundreds of vehicles stalled," reads the Hindi-language text overlaid on an Instagram video published on July 10.
It shows various aerial shots of a partly submerged city, with blocks of tall buildings surrounded by floodwater.
Its caption similarly claims it was filmed in Surat on "the morning of July 8, 2026".
The video also circulated in similar posts on Facebook, Instagram and X after heavy rainfall inundated parts of the city in India's western state of Gujarat.
It recorded 358 millimetres (14 inches) of rainfall within two days in July. Authorities said 34 were killed as of July 11, while 3,800 residents had been evacuated from the flood-prone city (archived link).
Local media published a video filmed in the city showing flooded streets and submerged vehicles (archived link).
Annual monsoon downpours have similarly triggered flooding in other Indian cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, resulting in widespread damage to their infrastructure (archived link).
But the circulating clip is AI-generated and does not show the situation in Surat.
Visual inconsistencies
A close analysis of the circulating video shows it contains visual errors, including a traffic pole that suddenly disappears at the clip's eighth-second mark.
AFP analysed the video using Google's SynthID detection tool, which indicated it was created using the company's AI tools (archived link).
A separate analysis of the video using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, confirmed that it was "99.9 percent" likely to be AI-generated (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked AI-generated visuals shared alongside other false claims.
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