Old videos circulated as scenes of Cyclone Remal
Videos unrelated to Cyclone Remal have been circulating on social media. Some users are misrepresenting old footage from disasters in various countries, including India and Myanmar, as scenes from Remal’s impact. According to the latest reports, Cyclone Remal has resulted in 10 fatalities in Bangladesh and affected over 3.75 million people. There have also been reports of damages and casualties in India.
A Facebook reel has been circulating, purportedly showing the rampage caused by Cyclone Remal. This video consists of seven disaster clips, all of which are old. The caption reads, “See how devastating Cyclone Remal is.” Verification by Dismislab revealed that the first, fourth, and seventh clips were actually taken during the 2023 flood in Himachal Pradesh, India. The oldest source identified is a video posted on June 9, 2023, by the Go Himachal X (previously Twitter) account. The original video was split into pieces and misrepresented as footage of Cyclone Remal.
The scenes shown in the reel’s second and fifth clips are from a video posted on Channel 4 News’ YouTube channel. The video, uploaded on May 14, 2023, depicts the devastation of Cyclone Mocha on Myanmar and Bangladesh. The area in Myanmar is referred to as Sittwe.
The third clip features a giant whirling body of water moving from the sea to the beach. A search for the source led to a fact-check report from Bishwa News, an Indian media outlet. The footage went viral following a cyclone calamity in India in 2023. Bishwa News verified that the video, which was posted on the Fox Weather’s YouTube channel, was actually recorded on a beach in Cyprus.
Verification of the sixth clip brings up a fact-check report by the Indian fact-checking organization Factly. Their verification indicates that the video spread on social media following the disastrous floods in Libya in 2023. Factly found that the video was originally obtained from the stock photo and video website Shutterstock. However, the tornado segment in the original clip was taken from the YouTube channel called Surrealvideos.
Furthermore, two days before Cyclone Remal, a reel was shared on Facebook. In the video, a person can be heard saying, “Look, many villages in India have been submerged due to heavy rain.” The livestock of poor and helpless people are floating to Bangladesh. See how the water is flowing. It may create flooding in Bangladesh as well.”
A reverse image search of the footage turned up a report from the West African fact-checking organization Dubawa. The video first surfaced on social media in 2021 as evidence of flooding in Nigeria. However, Dubawa verified that the footage is actually of the Zacualpan River in Nayarit, Mexico, taken during Cyclone Hanna in 2020. The video was also circulated as a scene from the Wayanad area in Kerala, India, but this claim was debunked by a fact-check report from Indian news outlet India Today.AI-generated images relating to Cyclone Remal have been spread on social media. Rumor Scanner published a fact-checking report on this image. Additionally, a video showing several children seeking shelter on a coconut tree to avoid floodwaters purportedly caused by the Cyclone has also spread. However, the fact-check report indicates that this video is old.
