Over the past month, violent storms and heavy rainfall have caused significant flooding in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. This event marks the largest flood in the country's 75-year history. Consequently, planes have been grounded, disrupting regular commuting in the cities. Similar severe weather conditions have also been observed in neighboring countries like Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

During this time, we noticed that some social media users have posted videos of desert flooding, claiming them to be from Saudi Arabia.

Social Media Claims

On the 17th of April, a Facebook user posted a video of multiple flood event footages, with the caption, "Flooding in Saudi Arabia."

Source | Archive

However, after conducting a check, we found that the footages in the video did not come from the recent flood in Saudi Arabia.

Fact-Check

We used the Reverse Image Search feature with keyframes from the video and here are our findings.

Footage 1: The 2018 desert sea flood event in Saudi Arabia

Left: Video posted on April 17th, 2024 | Right: Video from Saudi flood news in October 2016

We found matching videos for this event on the Saudi Arabia's news website, which reported the flood on October 26, 2018. Read more about this event from here.

Footage 2 of Oman Flood in 2022:

Left: Video posted on April 17th, 2024 | Right: Video from flood in Oman news in July 2022

We found corresponding videos from the Chilean news website Encancha.cl (Archive) that reported the flooding incident in Oman on July 28, 2022. The said disaster resulted in more than 21 fatalities.

Footage 3, video from 2023:

Left: Video posted on April 17th, 2024 | Right: Video from TikTok on November 2023

While we cannot pinpoint the exact origin of this event, research indicates that the referenced video was posted on TikTok in November 2023. This suggests that it depicts a flood event in Dubai (source).

Footage 4 Flood in 2023:

Left: Video posted on April 17th, 2024 | Right: Video from TikTok on November 2023

We found that the video matches one on the TikTok platform, which has been posted since November 2023, indicating that it depicts a flood event in Saudi Arabia (source).

Footage 5 Cyclone Shaheen in Oman 2021:

Left: Video posted on April 17th, 2024 | Right: Video from Oman flood event in 2021

We found relevant videos from an X (Twitter) account of @ArabiaWeatherSA. They have posted video reports of the mentioned flooding incident in Oman since October 4, 2021. You can view the video here:

Summary

The video clip above, which purports to show a flood event in Saudi Arabia, is not from a current event. Instead, it's a compilation of past flood footage. It is not related to the recent flood events in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Follow us and stay up to date with our latest fact checks.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LINE | TikTok | WhatsApp

Avatar

Title:Old footages being reshared as the recent flood event in Saudi Arabia

Fact Check By: Cielito Wang

Result: Misleading

Dubai floodSaudi ArabiaSaudi flood