A devastating flash flood on Wednesday, August 26, near the Nepal-Tibet border, resulted in massive destruction in several districts of Nepal, including Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, and Gorkha, with over 700 dead and over 2,500 people still missing. Reportedly, a glacial landslide of ice and rock caused the flash floods, which destroyed homes roads, bridges and power plants.

In the days following the catastrophe, social media was rife with video clips showing the extent of devastation — from gigantic waves of floodwater gushing through entire villages, to buildings collapsing, and people being swept away under the debris.

However, Alt News found that a large number of these videos circulating on social media were not authentic. Several of these videos were not from Nepal at all, but drawn from various other calamities which occurred across the world in the last few years.

Clip From 2025 Uttarakhand Floods

An X user, Said Ercan (@saidercan), posted a compilation clip on August 27 showing the havoc wreaked by large flood waves. The first clip shows a torrential river flowing through a mountainous area, and eventually sweeping through the houses on the banks, destroying them in an instant. The post has garnered over 5.8 million views and been reshared over 5,000 times at the time of publishing. (Archive)

To verify whether the video is of the Nepal floods, we broke it down into keyframes and ran a reverse image search. This led us to an Instagram post uploaded by The Times of India, on August 5, 2025, featuring the same footage.

 

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A post shared by The Times of India (@timesofindia)

The caption states that the footage is of the Uttarakhand cloudburst havoc. “At least four people have died and many are feared missing after a devastating flash flood triggered by a cloudburst in the upper catchment area of the Kheer Ganga river caused large-scale destruction in Dharali village in Uttarkashi district…,” read the caption.

A Dainik Bhaskar report also features the same video to show the scale of damage caused by the cloudburst in Uttarkashi. We ran relevant keyword searches, and found news reports from sources like Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Hindu, and others, that corroborated this finding. Thus, the video footage shared by the X user is actually of the 2025 Uttarakhand flash floods, and not of the recent Nepal havoc.

AI-generated Clip

In another instance, X user Ayesha Khan (@Ayesha0Khaan) posted a video clip, of huge waves sweeping away cars, building structures, and people. The clip received over 1 million views. (Archive)

X user Ravi Shankar Singh (@Ravishanka34381) also posted the clip with the same claim. However, we noticed some discrepancies in the video — for instance, around the 0:05 timestamp, a tree log appears out of nowhere in the debris flowing through the floodwater, indicating that the clip could be AI-generated.

We ran the video through Hive’s AI detection tool, which confirmed our suspicion, showing a 99.9% possibility of the video containing AI-generated content.

Clip From 2024 China Incident

News outlet Medya Post (@medya_post) uploaded a clip on X, which showed around 15 people getting swept away by powerful flood waves. The caption stated: “Tourists who wanted to take videos and photos during the flood disaster that occurred in Nepal were swept away by the current and disappeared.” The post had seen massive traction on social media, with over 1.5 million views. (Archive) 

Two other X users with the handles (@JMNewsNetwork_) and (@redpillmd) had uploaded the same video, with the former having deleted it after it had been viewed over 45,000 times.

To verify the clip’s authencity, we ran a reverse image search, which led us to an X post, originally uploaded by an user with the handle (@Arab_Storms) on September 8, 2024. 

According to the caption, the video had been taken in China, showing the powerful waves of the Qiantang River overpowering tourists on the shore who were clicking photos. The incident, which occured in the days following Asia’s most powerful storm in 2024, the Super Typhoon Yagi, had also been reported on by The Indian Express, and Newsflare.

Video From West Bengal Landslide

A news outlet TNT Media (@TNT_Media1) posted a clip which showed a mudslide from a vantage point. It also features the narrow escape of some vehicles and people gathered at the spot. The caption, written in Arabic, claims that horrifying scenes correspond to the recent Nepal flash floods. (Archive) 

We noticed that the car, visible in parts of the video, bears a number plate whose state code (WB) corresponds with that of West Bengal. Moreover, the recorder of the video, while shooting the clip, speaks in Bengali to warn people to get away from the waves.

A reverse image search on several keyframes of the video led us to this X post, uploaded by The Daily Jagran on August 17.

The caption states that the video shows a landslide in the Bindu area of West Bengal’s Kalimpong district, thereby proving that this video clip is not related to the Nepal flash floods.

Compilation Clip From Various Calamities

An X user named “Leonard Sardua $TOR” (@lsardua) posted a compilation of clips showing structures collapsing under the deluge, claiming they showed the devastation caused by the flash flood in Nepal. The clip garnered over 3.3 million views and 3,700 reshares. (Archive)

Two more users, “HadY Azmy” (@HadYAzmy1) and Ahmad Ansari (@Ahmadansari2233), amplified the same clip on August 27. The former video, which has now been deleted, had garnered over than 2.5 million views and over 3,000 reshares. 

On running a reverse image search on one keyframe from the viral clip, we were led to an article published by The Times of India on July 21. The report shows the same building structure collapse under the force of floodwater, and states that the video was from the Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Another segment of the compilation shows a red building being engulfed by the gushing floodwater, sweeping away cars and other structures amid the debris.

Running a reverse image search on this keyframe, we found that the clip could be traced back to a mudslide in Japan’s Atami city from July 2021. An X user with the handle @d_t_dcg_sdh had uploaded several clips showing the mudslide sweeping away houses and vehicles. We also found news reports from Al Jazeera and Spanish news outlet La Nacion, corroborating that the clip was recorded during a mudslide in Japan in 2021.

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The same compilation video also included a segment which showed a bridge being torn down by the raging floodwater.

This, we found, was in fact from an incident in Indonesia, showing the collapse of the wooden Molintogupo Bridge, owing to the overflowing of the Bone River. A video uploaded by Newsflare on Dailymotion, notes that the incident occurred on June 11, 2020. It was also reported on by VGTV.

Another segment of the same clip shows two men watching a bridge being dismantled and swept away by floodwater.

We found that this video was from Argentina. A reverse image search on a keyframe led us to this X post by AccuWeather on December 25, 2023, which shows a bridge in Argentina’s Catamarca being blown away by the turbulent floodwater.

Another video, showing a white car being dragged along by the torrential flow of mud water, was also part of this compilation.

This, Alt News found, was originally from Islamabad, in Pakistan, dating back to a devastating flood that took place in July 2025.

Similarly, a segment showing a woman overlooking a building structure being swept away by flood water, was also part of this compilation, alleging that it was from Nepal.

A reverse image search proved that the image has existed on X since at least September 2024. On further investigation, we found that it showed the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in  North Carolina, United States.

Another clip showing a submerged bus making its way through the floodwater was also featured in the compilation.

We found that this video was shot during a downpour in Pakistan’s Karachi, which left the city flooded and resulted in at least 16 deaths. Pakistani news media outlet 24 News HD, in their report on the flood dated March 19, used the same clip of the submerged bus.

 

Thus, the compilation clip uploaded by users “Leonard Sardua $TOR”, “HadY Azmy”, and Ahmad Ansari, with the claim that the footage depicts the havoc in Nepal is fake and misleading. The entire compilation stitches together footage from real calamities, occuring in various other parts of the world in the past few years, to wrongly claim that they are visuals from the Nepal flash floods on August 26.

False
Claim:
Videos claiming to show the devastation caused by Nepal flash floods in August 2026

The content is factually incorrect or fabricated.

Read our methodology