An Old Video of Tsunami in Japan in 2011 Falsely Claimed as Flood in Dubai

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was hit by heavy rain causing floods from February until early this month. Then, a video of cars being swiped by the flood was claimed as a natural disaster that happened in the UEA’s Dubai city last month. The claim has been widely shared on social media. However, by running a reverse image search, we found the claim is false.

SOCIAL MEDIA CLAIM

A video depicting a flood hitting a city was circulated on social media with a caption that it was a flood hitting Dubai city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on February 26, 2024.

The video had been widely shared, reacted to, and commented on by social media users; many of them believed it was true.

Below is the capture of the video posted on social media on February 26, 2024, with a caption saying “Flood in Dubai City.”

Facebook Post | Archived Link

FACT CHECK

Fact Crescendo Cambodia began debunking the video above by running a reverse image search which led us to find out the facts below.

By running a reverse image search, we found the same video uploaded on YouTube by EURONEWS channel 12 years ago.

The channel said the video is of the Tsunami hitting Sendai killing a lot of people and swiped everything.

Below is the full video uploaded by EURONEWS channel on March 12, 2012.

EURONEWS |Archived Link

The news was also uploaded on YouTube in Spanish by the same channel 12 years ago.

Japan’s eastern region including Sendai in Miyagi was hit by Tsunami following the strongest earthquake in the Pacific Ocean on March 11, 2011.

A Japanese government report said the disaster killed about 20,000 people, 6,000 injured, and 2,553 missing.

After finding the original video, it clearly shows the Tsunami in Japan 12 years ago is nothing related to the recent flood hitting the UAE’s Dubai city.

According to an AP report, Dubai City and other parts of the UAE have gotten heavy rains for three weeks, causing floods across the country. Watch the full video below.

Below is another AP report about floods hitting the UAE in February and early this month.

CONCLUSION

Fact Crescendo Cambodia found out the video claim mentioned above is misleading. This video clip is not of the flood hitting UAE’s Dubai city this year. This is an old video of Tsunami hitting Japan’s Sendai city 12 years ago.