Month-old video of storm hitting eastern China misrepresented as Typhoon Dolphin

"Real-time track of Typhoon Dolphin: A repeat of the Doksuri disaster? The northern area is the hardest-hit zone for torrential rain!" says a Douyin post published August 10 in simplified Chinese.

The post references Typhoon Doksuri, which brought record-breaking rain across northern China in 2023, killing at least 78 people (archived link).

"Typhoon Dolphin is pushing deep inland, acting like a massive pump for torrential rain," it adds.

The video, which racked up tens of thousands of likes and shares, shows massive waves slamming into a bridge in a coastal area, with overlaid text reading: "Super Typhoon Dolphin".

It was published by a Douyin user with over 53,000 followers who frequently posts science explainer content.

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Screenshot of the false Douyin post taken on August 12, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

Typhoon Dolphin, the 13th of 2026, made landfall near Yuhuan in eastern China's Zhejiang Province on August 9, with maximum wind speeds near the centre of more than 150 kilometres (94 miles) per hour (archived link).

It triggered a red typhoon alert -- the most severe warning -- prompting flight cancellations and the evacuation of more than one million people along the densely populated eastern Chinese coast. After its landfall, it tracked deeper inland to central provinces and as far north as Beijing. 

The clip of waves crashing into a bridge spread on other social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube and Weibo -- with one X post garnering over 2.6 million views. Similar claims also circulated in English, Turkish and Japanese.

However, the footage was filmed when Typhoon Bavi hit China in July -- nearly a month before Typhoon Dolphin.

A reverse image search using keyframes from the video led to a clip published July 12 by Shanghai-based digital media outlet The Paper (archived link). 

The title says it was filmed by a resident on the Zhoushan Islands in Zhejiang province before Typhoon Bavi's landfall, showing "massive waves on the shoreline". Text overlaid on the video says it was filmed on July 11. 

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Screenshot comparison of the false Douyin post (L) and the video published by The Paper on July 12, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

Typhoon Bavi made landfall in the province that day, with winds of 144 kilometres (90 miles) per hour. Chinese authorities evacuated nearly two million people in its path (archived link). 

A Douyin user posted another video showing the same scene. She wrote in the comments that it was captured in Shengshan -- a town in the Zhoushan Islands -- before Typhoon Bavi made landfall, and that many people filmed the scene from an observation deck (archived link).

AFP geolocated the footage shared online to the southern coast of Shengshan Island (archived link).  

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation related to recent typhoons in China.