Old Jammu-Kashmir flood video shared as Nepal footage
A video posted on Facebook claims that a building, along with people, was swept away by a current of water during a recent flash flood in Nepal. However, Dismislab’s verification found that the circulated video is not from the recent flood in Nepal. It is footage of an incident that took place in Jammu and Kashmir, India, in July of this year.
The video was posted on August 27 from an online portal on Facebook named “News Box.” The 28-second video shows a large number of people gathered at one spot on a building, with a powerful current flowing below. Within moments, the entire building, along with its occupants, collapses and is submerged in water. From the other side, a group of people is seen watching the entire scene and recording video of the incident. The caption read, “Devastating flood in Nepal, entire building submerged along with people in the blink of an eye.”
By the time of this report’s publication, the video had been viewed more than 478,000 times and shared more than 1,400 times. There are more than 10,000 reactions on the post.
The video was posted on multiple personal Facebook profiles, pages, and groups (1,2,3,4,5,6), which described it as footage of the flood in Nepal.
In its investigation, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search using various keyframes from the video. In doing so, Dismislab found a video report published on July 22 on the verified YouTube channel of the Indian news outlet News18 Urdu. The first 28 seconds of the flood scene in that report were found to be an exact match with the circulated video. Translated into Bangla, the headline of the report reads, “Beerwah Flood, 1 Dead, Shops & Buildings Washed Away by Flood | Budgam Flood, Kashmir Weather. ” The report reveals that a flash flood, caused by heavy rainfall in the highland areas of Budgam district in central Kashmir, inundated Beerwah and its surrounding areas. In the Beerwah flood, a dozen or so shops in a building constructed near the Sukhnag river embankment collapsed into the overflowing floodwater and were swept away by the current.
A search using relevant keywords found reports on the incident published by multiple news outlets (1,2,3,4). These reports reveal that the flash flood caused by heavy rainfall in Jammu and Kashmir caused extensive damage to homes, markets, roads, and government infrastructure. In Budgam’s Beerwah area, the waters of the Sukhnag river overflowed and caused a shopping complex to collapse. In this incident, around 24 shops were swept away, severely affecting local businesses.
In other words, the video circulated as footage from Nepal is, in fact, a scene from the flash flood that occurred in Jammu and Kashmir, India, in July of this year.
Notably, the death toll from the devastating flood and flash landslides that struck the Nepal-Tibet border region on August 26 has risen to over 480. Besides, more than 1,400 people remain missing in this incident.
