Severe flooding in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in April 2024 killed four people and forced more than 100,000 to evacuate. However, old photos of record flooding there in 2022 were shared in online posts. The earlier crisis left some Chinese cities inundated by floods and forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.
“20. “April 1, Hanguang City, Yingde County, Guangdong,” read the simplified Chinese caption of an X post shared on April 23, 2024.
The post included four photos showing buildings submerged in muddy floodwaters.
More than 45,000 people were evacuated from Yingde, a county in northern Guangdong’s Qingyuan city that lies on the low-lying Pearl River Delta, official media reported on April 21, 2024, after days of torrential rain caused landslides and severe flooding across the province .
As of April 24, the once-in-a-century flood had killed four people and forced 100,000 people to evacuate as authorities warned of more rain the following week.
The severe flooding this early in the year is virtually unheard of even in lush, subtropical Guangdong, and a senior official is linking it to worsening climate change.
The images were repeatedly shared online in posts X and Facebook as well as on the Taiwanese news site Newtalk.
But the photos are from June 2022.
Guangdong floods 2022
A reverse image search on Google revealed that the first photo was attributed to Chinese photo agency Visual China Group (VCG) and distributed by Getty Images on June 22, 2022 (archived link).
The caption read: “Aerial view of a flood-hit community after torrential rain on June 22, 2022 in Yingde, Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province of China. China’s Guangdong Province Flood Control Authority launched a Level I emergency response on Tuesday.”
Record flooding forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate parts of southern China in June 2022 as heavy rains pushed water levels in the Pearl River Delta – home to the economic hubs of Guangzhou and Shenzhen – to their highest in almost a century, AFP reported.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the false posts (left) and the photo attributed to (VCG) (right):
The same photo was also used in reports from China National Emergency Broadcasting (CNEB) and national broadcaster CCTV (archived links here and here).
The second photo – showing a sunken tower and other buildings – was published by the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper on June 22, 2022 (archived link).
The report said Wenfeng Tower, a Yingde landmark and tourist attraction, was flooded along with low-lying houses near the Bei River (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the fake posts (left) and the photo published by the Southern Metropolis Daily (right):
AFP located Wenfeng Tower on Google Maps and found a corresponding photo of it published by the local government (archived links here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image published by the Southern Metropolis Daily (left) and the image published by the local government (right):
The third picture in the posts also shows Wenfeng Tower surrounded by floods.
It was published by China National Radio (CNR) on June 21, 2022 in a report on local authorities’ flood level forecasts for the southern Chinese city of Qingyuan (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the third photo in the fake posts (left) and the image published by CNR (right):
The final photo – showing a mountain community submerged in muddy water – included a watermark for Guangdong’s state-run newspaper Nanfang Daily.
AFP found that it was published by the newspaper here on June 23, 2022 in a report on flood rescue efforts in Guangdong’s Yingde County (archived link).
According to the caption, the photo shows flooding in Yinghong Township, central Yingde (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the fake posts (left) and the photo published by Nanfang Daily (right):
Flooding during the rainy season in China is sometimes deadly and often leads to a wave of disinformation, which AFP has previously debunked here , here and here .