Floods in South Africa’s Durban: this photo was taken back in 2017, not recently

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 24, 2019 at 16:33
1 min read
By AFP South Africa, Tendai DUBE

At least 51 people have been killed in flooding in South Africa as heavy rains hit the southern and eastern parts of the country. Numerous photos shared on social media show the devastation the floods have caused in Durban and the wider province of KwaZulu-Natal, but this image is not one of them -- it shows the effects of flooding in the same region in 2017.

The image can be seen in an April 24 Facebook post, archived here, and had garnered over 200 shares within a few hours of posting.

“Main highway in Durban,” reads the caption.

While it does not directly claim to show the current situation in the city, many readers would be likely to interpret it that way given the current situation in Durban.

A screenshot taken on April 24, 2019 of the misleading post

A reverse image search of the image on the search engine TinEye, sorted by date, shows the image has been online since at least 2017.

A screenshot taken on April 24, 2019 of the TinEye reverse image search results

One of the links shows a news report from October 10, 2017, where the publication used an image posted by a Twitter user.

#DurbanStorm aftermath on the N2 freeway, next to the old airport pic.twitter.com/JBqjBeVsna
— Papi (@Paul_JV) October 10, 2017

As reported by AFP, military personnel have been dispatched to help rescue and evacuation efforts but the South African Weather Services have warned that more heavy rain and gale force winds are expected, which could threaten low-lying bridges and roads.

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Floods in South Africa’s Durban: this photo was taken back in 2017, not recently

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