Fact-Check: Unrelated & AI Visuals Falsely Linked to Recent Nepal Floods

We found out that the visuals do not show the situation after the recent Nepal floods.

Unrelated and AI-generated videos are being shared on social media, falsely linked to the Nepal floods.  

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Amid the floods in Nepal, videos are being shared claiming to show the conditions in Nepal.

• A video claiming to show a street getting wiped out by the flash floods in Nepal, and one of a herd of elephants being swept away by the Nepal floods and reaching Uttar Pradesh, are a few of the videos that are going viral.

• The viral video of the elephants was shared by news organisations Mirror Now and CNN-News18.

An archived version of this claim can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more claims can be found here, here, and here.)

An archived version of this claim can be found here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more claims can be found here, here, here, and here.)

How did we find out?:

1. Video 1: The first video claims to show a herd of wild elephants that were swept away by the floods in Nepal, reaching Uttar Pradesh.

• We ran a reverse image search on the first video using Google Lens and found a report by Hindi news publication Dainik Bhaskar that shared a video with similar visuals to the viral video.

• According to the report, wild elephants that were coming from the Gerua River reached the gate at the Chaudhary Charan Singh Ghaghra Barrage in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh due to strong currents in the river.

• The report also notes that the Forest Range Officer said that since the area is adjacent to the elephant corridor, they often move there.

A preview of the report

(Source: Dainik Bhaskar/ Screenshot)

• After conducting a keyword search, we found another report on the same incident.

• According to The Times of India article, five wild elephants were trapped in the currents of the Kaudiyala river on 25 August 2026.

• They were rescued by the range officer and a team of forest officers.

• This incident occurred on the 25th, while the Nepal flash floods started on 26 August 2026.

A preview of the report

(Source: The Times of India/ Screenshot)

• This proves that the video is unrelated to the Nepal floods.

Video 2: The second video shows a street being wiped out by the floods.

• We ran a reverse image search on the first video using Google Lens and could not find any credible sources sharing it.

• Following this, we ran the video through Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, which flagged it as 99 percent likely to be AI-generated.

AI detection by Hive Moderation

(Source: Hive Moderation/ Screenshot)

• Upon close observation, we observed some irregularities.

• The vehicles and buildings collapse unrealistically as the water moves over them.

• We also observed that the trees fall unnaturally. Some of the trees and structures appear and morph out of nowhere.

Freezing different frames of the video. 

(Source: Screenshot/Twitter)

• This proves that the video was AI-generated.

Conclusion: Neither of the videos shows actual footage of the Nepal floods.

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