Are the People of Chennai enjoying swimming in floods? Read the Fact Check

Cyclone Michaung tore through Chennai and its surrounding districts, smashing vehicles and bikes and flooding homes throughout the coastal metropolis. In the midst of this, a lot of people are using the hashtag #Chennai floods on social media to share several videos of the flooding. We also came across one such video that is going viral where people are linking the video with the current floods happening in Chennai. In the video, people can be seen swimming on the streets.

The claim made by users

Many users including @Mr_LoLwa and @FreakinAniket are sharing this video with the claim “People on social media: prayers for Chennai they are in trouble Meanwhile people of Chennai”

Fact Check

To investigate the truth behind the viral video, the DFRAC team converted the video into some keyframes and reverse-searched it on Google. We found a media report by News 18 where they uploaded the same video and stated, “Flooded Kanyakumari Streets Turn ‘Water Park’ As Youngsters Swim, Play Volleyball” on 15 November 2021.

Moreover, we also found the same video uploaded on the YouTube channel named Kaumudy Global on 15 November 2021. Its caption reads “Watch: Locals playing football, doing push-ups in gushing waters amid flood| Kanyakumari rains”.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is clear from the DFRAC’s fact-check that this is an old video. It is from Kanyakumari flood and is not from the recent flood happening in Chennai. Thus, the video is getting shared misleadingly.