Claim: A Facebook reel shows video clips of severe flooding in Spain.
Why we fact-checked this: The Facebook reel containing the claim, posted on July 24, has garnered 9,900 likes, 822 comments, and 49,000 shares as of writing.
A Facebook page with 24,000 followers posted the video, which shows scenes of devastation as flood water swept through city streets. Text superimposed on the video says: “Flood in Spain.”
The bottom line: The Facebook reel does not show clips of flooding in Spain. Rather, it uses videos of floods, landslides, and severe rainfall that happened in other countries.
A Google reverse image search reveals that the first clip shows floods in Oman, a country located in West Asia that shares its land borders with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The heavy rain and flooding in Oman occurred in April this year, killing at least 19 people according to a BBC report. The same conditions affected the Gulf Region, including Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Another video clip in the misleading Facebook reel shows a landslide that occurred in Japan on July 3, 2021 following days of heavy rain. A YouTube video posted by the Hindustan Times states that the incident occurred in Atami, a coastal city in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture.
Another clip was taken from a video posted on January 22 by Instagram user Erik D. Hanson, which shows severe flooding in Roi-Namur, an island located on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. According to a report from ABC News, extreme waves caused the flooding.
Past flooding in Spain: Severe flooding hit Spain in June this year. The heavy rain mostly affected the island of Mallorca, where the conditions halted operations in Son Sant Joan airport, Spain’s third largest airport. The Spanish region of Murcia was also affected.
Deceptive videos: The Facebook page that posted the reel has a history of posting videos falsely claiming natural disasters and extreme weather events occurring in various countries. Several users in the comment section have pointed out that many of these videos are fake. – Katarina Ruflo/Rappler.com
Katarina Ruflo is a Rappler intern. She is currently pursuing a degree in Political Science with a major in International Relations and Foreign Service at the University of San Carlos, Cebu.
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