Viral video shows floods in Venezuela in October 2022, not recent flood in Santiago, Chile.
Two people are dead from flooding in the central-southern region of Chile on 21 August, 2023 while thousands others have been evacuated or left homeless from dangerous rains pounding isolated communities. President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe after visiting one of the worst affected areas, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital Santiago. On this backdrop a video of a car and a tree being washed away during floods has gone viral on social media. The video shows a tree being swept away in a mudslide and the flood also washes a car away. The caption of the post reads, “Floods due to intense rains in Santiago, Chile”
The post was widely shared on Facebook
Fact Check-
By performing a reverse image search on Google, the results led us to the report by Noticias Barquisimeto, a Venezuelan digital news outlet on 18 October 2022 that included the viral video. Noticias Barquisimeto’s compilation of three video clips of the floods included an extended, 30-second-long version of the viral clip. The news outlet also posted this to Instagram with a voiceover reporting on a river that overflowed in El Castaño, Maracay, Venezuela, and the death of at least three people in the flood.
We also came across a post by El Nuevo Sur, a newspaper publisher in Colombia, uploaded an extended versions of the viral video on their Facebook pages with Spanish captions, “THREE DEAD BY OVERFLOW OF THE PALMARITO RIVER IN VENEZUELA” (English Translation).
We could not verify the original source of the video independently, but the video has existed on the internet since at least October 18, 2022, predating the recent Chile floods. The claim was also debunked by Reuters.
Conclusion-
Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False. The viral video shows floods in Venezuela in October 2022, not recent flood in Santiago, Chile.
