Old video of collapsing house in China falsely linked to Thai floods

Social media users have shared an old video of a house in China collapsing in floodwater with a false claim that it was filmed during deadly floods that hit northern Thailand in September 2024. The video has previously circulated in Chinese reports published four years ago.

"I'm sorry for the loss. The house took a long time to build. I saw this and cried," read a caption of a TikTok post published on September 17, 2024 along with several hashtags, including #ChiangRaiFlood and #FloodsinNorthernThailand2024.

The post shared a 14-second video of a house surrounded by floodwater collapsing.

It has been viewed more than 520,000 times.

The false claim circulated after northern Thailand was severely affected by flash floods as Typhoon Yagi barrelled through Southeast Asia and left more than 500 people dead (archived link).

The kingdom's northern provinces were hit hard, with one district reporting its worst inundations in 80 years.

The video with the same false claim has been shared on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

However, the video has circulated since July 2020 and shows a house destroyed by floods in eastern China.

Flooding in China

Using a reverse image search on Google and Baidu, AFP traced the video to news reports and social media posts about flooding in China in July 2020.

Record flooding hit large swathes of central and eastern China at the time, and left more than 140 people dead or missing (archived link).

State-run China News Service (CNS) published the clip in a report dated July 9, 2020 with a title that read: "A building in Poyang, Jiangxi destroyed in an instant by floods" (archived link).

"Some 710mm of heavy rainfall in Poyang County, Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province in recent days has led to the collapse of a dike in Wengguidao," the video's caption read. "A large amount of flood water surged through and flooded five villages."

Below is a screenshot comparison between the false TikTok post (left) and the China News Service report (right):

Another Chinese online news outlet The Paper also published the same clip on July 9, 2020 in a report about the floods (archived link).

"Three-storey building in Poyang Jiangxi destroyed in an instant by floodwater," the report's headline read. "Residents evacuated prior to the incident."

The same video was also shared virally on Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili in July 2020, where user comments linked the video to flooding in Poyang (archived link).

AFP has debunked misinformation related to the flood in northern Thailand here.