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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Disasters & emergencies fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about disasters & emergencies. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,259 published reviews in this topic

Deutsche WelleDisasters & emergencies

At the end of August, a user shared a video of a cloudburst, linking it to the current floods in Pakistan. The text at the top video in Urdu reads "cloudburst scenes." One user comments below the video, suspecting that it was created with AI. The video also already appeared a few weeks earlier on TikTok.

Publisher’s rating: DW Fact check: False. The video suggests that the cloudburst took place in Pakistan, while acutally, it shows a scene in Australia from 2020. A reverse image search of a screenshot from the video leads to another YouTube upload of 2020. The text on that video says "Kane Artie Photography". Kane Artie is a photographer based in Perth who shared a still from a timelapse video of a microburst in February 2020. It shows the same scene as in the video that is being shared currently in the context with Pakistan. The video has already been used several times in misleading contexts, for instance in connection with a flood disaster in Spain or in Bangalore, India. But it is definitely unrelated to the recent floods in Pakistan and India.

Deutsche WelleDisasters & emergencies

A user on facebook claims that a video is showing flooding in Lahore, Pakistan, implying that it is recent. The description on the video says: "A huge tragedy: the entire school bus, including the children, is swept away by the floodwaters." It shows a green van being swept away by water until it eventually sinks. Scenes from this video are also shared by other users in the current flood context.

Publisher’s rating: DW Fact check: False. Through a reverse image search, DW Fact check found a YouTube videoshowing the incident from another angle. The video was taken originally in 2022 during floods in Iran and the text below the YouTube video says in Farsi: "On July 30, passengers of a van traveling on the road from Miami to Chenark in Iran's Razavi Khorasan province were caught in a flash flood." Farsi-language sources from 2022 confirm that this incident did take place and that a van was swept away by the floods. At least seven passengers lost their lives in the incident. In late July 2022, Iran was hit by several floods and mudslides. Back then, DW reported about videos being posted on social media that showed cars caught in the rising waters and carried away.

Deutsche WelleDisasters & emergencies

Claim: A user on Instagram posted a video of a train stuck in the floods suggesting it showed the current flooding in Patna, India.

Publisher’s rating: DW Fact check: Fake. Through a reverse image search with a screenshot of the video showing the stuck train, DW Fact check tracked it back to the initial account where the clip was first posted. The account's description says it's an "AI Video creator" and the channel points out that that the video in question "is completely Al generated (...) Please don't take it as real footage." Even without that information, it's easy to spot the typical errors made by Artificial Intelligence. The hands of the AI-generated figures partially melt into each other in an unnatural way. The persons' hair also does not look real. Another indicator of AI-generated content can be the writing seen on the train. While the words at the top of the video are indeed in Hindi, two DW journalists who knows Indian languages and scripts could not identify the writing on the train. The characters seem to be inspired by Punjabi or Hindi, but are not attributed to any Indian script, even though the train does resemble those in South Asia. Additionally, there have been no news reports mentioning any such incident in Patna.

Deutsche WelleDisasters & emergencies

In a viral poston X (archived here), a user wrote that "Kunar province in Afghanistan has been severely impacted by a powerful earthquake, leaving residents injured and devastated." The user posted a picture in support of an appeal: "The community is in urgent need of immediate crisis response and assistance."

Publisher’s rating: DW Fact check: Fake. The scene in the image is cluttered with visual cues meant to foreshadow disaster: demolished houses, people standing outside, a fire burning in the rubble, with the moon partly hidden by clouds over the mountains. This alone is enough to set off alarm bells that the image could be generated with the help of AI. It's as if the picture were crafted with lots of time and attention to detail. How to research whether an image is authentic? A simple search of the image revealed its origin: "Made with Google AI." There are also visible flaws in the image itself: shadows are cast on the same side as the light source, when they should fall in the opposite direction. The people in the image appear to be wearing winter clothes, and they look strikingly calm. When compared with genuine photos from the area, one can see that locals are not dressed in winter clothing.

日本ファクトチェックセンター(JFC)Disasters & emergencies

竜巻が燃えだす?

Publisher’s rating: 誤り

A video posted on X on August 29, 2025, appeared to show a tornado catching fire. The review found that its opening image matched a real tornado photographed near Traer, Iowa, and concluded the video was likely made by altering that footage with AI; other videos of the same tornado do not show it igniting.

Deutsche WelleDisasters & emergencies

A videoposted on X claims to show a mass funeral, in which hundreds of bodies shrouded in white cloth are being carried to their final resting place. "This is not Gaza — this is Afghanistan's Kunar province, where more than 800 people have lost their lives and thousands have been injured in just one night due to a devastating earthquake," the caption reads. It further appeals for donations and provides several telephone numbers: "Anyone who wishes to help or donate can reach out to the following Afghan numbers…"

Publisher’s rating: DW Fact check: Fake. This video is fake. To be more precise, it was generated with the help of artifical intelligence (AI). There are several obvious clues in the footage, such as the fact that there are no identifiable faces in the video. A few figures appear to be moving in the eight-second-long clip, but their movements appear unnatural, almost robotic. It also appears as if each body were being carried by two people, without the help of a cot or coffin. And several individuals appear to be walking away from the procession, or in the opposite direction as the crowd. Both instances seem nonsensical in this context. For the most part, the bodies being carried are rigidly horizontal, which looks strange. Media reports from the earthquake-affected Kunar province show large-scale destruction, with many collapsed buildings. However, in the video, there are no signs of recent damage — the buildings in the background appear intact. Unsurprisingly, many users have already pointed out in the comments that they think the image is AI-generated. A reverse image search led us to several earlier posts in which the same video was linked to Pakistan's floods on August 20. As Afghanistan deals with the aftermath of Sunday's massive earthquake, its neighbor Pakistan has been experiencing exceptionally severe flooding since late June.

Fact CrescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: மேக வெடிப்பு ஏற்பட்டபோது பதிவு செய்யப்பட்ட வீடியோ என்று ஒரு பதிவு சமூக ஊடகங்களில் வைரலாக பகிரப்பட்டு வருகிறது.

Publisher’s rating: ஃபேக்ட் கிரஸண்டோ ரேட்டிங்: FALSE

The review found that the viral video was not genuine cloudburst footage: its water-fall segment was assessed as 99.6% AI-generated, and the Instagram account bearing its watermark described it as fictional AI-generated content. The account’s post was dated August 5, 2025.