What was claimed
A video compilation shows the damage caused by the recent floods in Spain.
Our verdict
This is not true. Most of the footage appeared online before the floods in Spain and was likely filmed in Poland.
Video compilation likely shows flooding in Poland, not Spain
19 November 2024
A compilation video claiming to show flood damage in Spain actually shows older footage of floods, likely filmed in Poland in September.
The video has been widely shared on Facebook with a caption listing various cities and counties in Spain: “Flooding in Barcelona catalonia Valencia almeria Valencia spain amposta montsia catalonia Tarragona Espagne Espana today [sic].”
More than 220 people were killed in floods in Spain at the end of October, but the footage being shared is unrelated to this. Instead the clips appear to show the damage caused by Storm Boris, which hit central Europe, including Poland, in September.
Using Google Lens Full Fact traced four of the five clips in the compilation back to videos posted before the floods in Spain, with captions linking them to Poland. The first, which shows cars being swept away by flooding, was posted to the Instagram page of a North Macedonian news website, on 26 September, with a caption which says it shows flooding in Lądek-Zdrój, Poland. The version in the compilation has been horizontally flipped—which can be seen with the backwards parking sign.
The second clip, which shows flooded cars and debris floating past a yellow house was posted on TikTok on 20 September, before the major floods hit Spain, and is again captioned as being in Lądek-Zdrój, Poland, not Spain.
The third clip of floodwaters rushing past a partially destroyed building was posted on TikTok on 24 September, again before the floods in Spain. The TikTok caption claims it shows the Polish town of Stronie Śląskie, which was badly hit by the flooding in September.
The fourth video in the compilation, posted to TikTok on 15 September, includes the hashtag Głuchołazy, which was one of the Polish towns affected by the September storm. Google Translate also identified the text in the video as Polish and translated it as: “Thousands of people are losing their belongings”.
Full Fact was not able to trace the last clip in the compilation.
Misleading images and videos are a common form of misinformation we see circulating online during breaking news events.
We have created a guide with advice about how to verify that the videos you are seeing on social media show what they claim to.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the clips in the compilation show flooding in September, likely in Poland, not Spain in October.