This video doesn’t show recent floods in France or Spain

Flash floods and mudslides have been affecting different parts of Spain for the past few weeks. Before that, heavy rain in France caused damage to houses and towns and caused massive power outages.  

A Nov. 14 Facebook post claims to show this flood damage in Spain and France and includes video of a wave of water crushing a structure, accompanied by the text "spain france." Disasters21, a Facebook account that regularly posts videos and images of natural disasters, shared the video.

The video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

PolitiFact could not identify the video’s location or exact date. But this video is not from the floods that began Oct. 29 in Spain because of DANA, a meteorological system that destabilizes air masses and can trigger intense rain. At least 215 people have died because of the floods since late October. The video also does not depict the recent months of heavy rain affecting France.

This isn't the first time we've fact-checked and found False posts claiming to show current flooding in Spain.

Instead, the video has been circulating online since at least mid–2023. 

(Screenshot from Facebook post.)

PolitiFact conducted a reverse-image search using Google Images, Google Lens, Yandex, Bing image search and TinEye. 

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stated on November 21, 2024 in social media posts

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We found the video posted online as far back as May 28, 2023, on an Iranian website. A Google translation of the website’s content identified Persian text saying, "Terrible images of landslides after the flood." It also says: "A video of the landslide after the flood has been published in cyberspace, which has attracted the attention of cyberspace users," but it does not specify a date or location for the clip. 

A TikTok account published the video Sept. 2, 2023, with the caption, "Effect of clkmate change," misspelling "climate." 

A YouTube video posted the same video Nov. 29, 2023, with the caption, "Natural disasters and floods" in English and another text that Google Translate says means "Floods, natural disasters, floods" in Vietnamese.

Another TikTok account also shared the video Jun. 3, with the caption, "Biggest tsunami in 2024," but it does not provide any additional details.

We found the video in another Nov. 14 Facebook post, titled "Romania." The accompanying text says "Careful" in Romanian, according to Google Translate. The same Facebook account previously posted the video May 23, 2023, with the text, "God doesn’t wave his hair, he takes everything from you in a second," also in Romanian, according to Google Translate.

It’s clear the Facebook post by Disasters21 shows disaster footage that’s at least a year-and-a-half old. We rate the claim that it shows recent flooding in Spain or France False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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