Copyright AFP 2017-2023. All rights reserved.
A sequence showing two housing collapses in China and India circulates on social networks erroneously linked to Storm Daniel, which hit Libya in September 2023. With that message it has been spread dozens of times since September 12, 2023 in social media posts. Through reverse keyframe lookups, AFP Factual was able to determine that neither scene was recorded in the African country.
“Moment when a large building collapses in Libya after the impact of storm DANI”point out the entries that accompany the sequence on Facebook (1, 2) and TikTok.
The recording, which first shows the collapse of a yellow building and then the collapse of a house into a ravine, is also circulating in French.
Screenshot of a Facebook post made on September 14, 2023
After passing through Greece and Bulgaria, Storm Daniel arrived in Libya on September 10, where it caused serious flooding, various damages and the death of more than 3,300 people and thousands of people missing.
Experts consider that the increase in water temperature in the Mediterranean Sea, poor infrastructure and political chaos are some of the main causes that caused the disaster in that country.
A video from 2017
The first part of the recording broadcast on networks shows a yellow building collapsing. A reverse Google search of the keyframes led to a video recorded on July 8, 2017.
According to the description, the scene was taken on Chengdu West Road in Chamdo Prefecture in China’s Tibet region.
Another search with English words “Chamdo”, “Tibet”, “building”, “collapse” and “2017” led to a video, published on the 10th of the same month, by The Guardian newspaper in which the yellow building is seen with the same windows falling, but recorded from another angle.
The report mentions that a flood forced 1.6 million people to evacuate central China and caused the collapse of that building.
The second part of the sequence broadcast on networks shows another landslide near a river. Reverse searching one of his frames on Google led to a video posted on YouTube on July 10, 2023 that mentions that it is a flood in Himachal Pradesh, northern India.
The same investigation led to a YouTube account that published the viral sequence on August 15, 2023 and, a day later, another recording that shows the destruction of a bridge, located in front of the same properties in the video on social networks. The description in Hindi indicates that it is a landslide due to a flood in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
A search with English words “Himachal”, “pradesh”, “flood” and “collapse”led to articles in international media (1, 2) and videos disseminated by Indian media on YouTube (1, 2), published between July 10 and August 24, 2023. The entries report that during that period they were recorded in monsoon, floods and landslides hit the region, leaving at least 65 dead.
AFP Factual could not find the origin of the video, but the records found were published before the arrival of Storm Daniel in Libya and the subsequent floods.
AFP Factual has already verified videos related to Storm Daniel in Libya (1, 2, 3).
References
- Video published in July 2017 from Tibet
- Press report of the collapse of a building in July 2017 in Tibet
- Video of a house collapse in India on July 10, 2023
