Misleading: City engulfed in flood waters in popular video is not Chongqing, China
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By Stephanie Chan and Judy Kwong
A video showing a city engulfed in flood waters has been circulating widely since last week. A Twitter post with the claim that the location is Chongqing, China, has received more than 105,000 views. Another tweet with the same video reads, “Chongqing sinks in a muddy stream.”
In the video, cars are flushed down the street by the flash flood and bobbing up and down. A man’s voice describes the situation in Mandarin and says he is in Chongqing, but he does not appear in any of the frames.
This video has been manipulated. The same video was posted on YouTube in November 2011 without narration, and shows a shop sign in Italian that reads “Centro colori e carta da parati.”
Google’s street view map confirms that the location is in Genoa, Italy.
Annie Lab could not confirm precisely when the video was taken — either in 2011 or earlier — but it was not filmed this year, or in 2019 as a Twitter user claimed, or in 2014 as mentioned by another account.
The city of Genoa suffered from flooding both in 2019 and 2014 as reported by FloodList in 2019 and Reuters in 2014, but this video is older.
According to CCTV NEWS, Chongqing has experienced severe flooding recently as well.
Disclaimer: This is a student work. Although JMSC faculty members have done everything possible to verify its accuracy, we cannot guarantee there are no mistakes. If you notice an error or have any questions, please email us at contact@annieasia.org.
