Old footage from Saudi Arabia misrepresented as scenes of devastating flooding from Libya
A general view of the city of Derna is seen on Tuesday, Sept. 12., 2023. The Associated Press on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, reported on social media posts misrepresenting old footage from Saudi Arabia as scenes from Libya’s destructive floods this month. (AP Photo/Jamal Alkomaty)
CLAIM: A video shows flooding that devastated Derna, Libya after the city’s dams collapsed during a powerful storm this month.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video has been online since April 2016 and shows flood waters pouring through a dry river valley in a mountainous region of Saudi Arabia at the time.
THE FACTS: As search efforts continue following massive flooding in Libya over the weekend, social media users are circulating videos claiming to show scenes of the devastation in real time.
One widely shared clip shows a dry, sandy riverbed on the edge of a community of squat concrete buildings the moment that brown, debris-filled flood waters barrel through.
Vehicles driving on a bridge spanning the channel quickly reverse course or veer wildly to avoid the churning, chocolate-looking waters as they rush over the riverbanks and pour over the roadway.
“TRAGIC: Massive flood have hit Libya, and reportedly, more than 5300 people have been confirmed dead so far - Death toll could reach above 10,000 say officials,” wrote a Facebook user that shared the 30-second clip earlier this week.
While the user correctly reported on the dire situation in the North African nation, the video included with their post was shot more than seven years ago and on another continent more than 1,700 miles away.
It shows torrents of water in a wadi, or a normally dry ravine or valley that floods during rainy season, in the Saudi Arabian community of Al Farshah in April 2016, according to news outlets in the country that shared the video at the time.
Ajel, an online news site, shared the clip in a Facebook post, saying in Arabic that it showed Wadi Al Farshah, in the Tihama Qahtan region, blocking the road .
Daralakhbar, another Saudi news site, similarly described the video in a Facebook post in Arabic as showing the overflowing Wadi Al Farshah impeding cars and pedestrians.
Satellite images from Google Maps of Al Farshah confirm the community has the same rugged mountain terrain, the distinctive red, gray and yellow buildings along a walled channel and a bridge nearby that spans the waterway.
Meanwhile in Libya, authorities say some 10,000 people are missing and feared dead in the flooding that has already claimed more than 11,000 lives.
The country was hit Sunday night by an unusually strong Mediterranean storm that impacted communities across the eastern portion of the country.
The worst-hit was Derna, where two dams collapsed in exceptionally heavy rains, sending a wall of water gushing down Wadi Derna, a valley that cuts through the city.
The flooding swept away entire families and exposed vulnerabilities in the oil-rich country that has been mired in conflict since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.