As devastating floods hit Thailand in August 2024, old photos made the rounds in Facebook posts that misleadingly linked them to the disaster. While one of the pictures genuinely showed buildings inundated after an embankment collapsed in the Thai province of Sukhothai, other images in the posts were taken in 2011 and 2023.
“There was flooding in Myanmar and now in Thailand,” read a Burmese-language Facebook post that shared the photos on August 28, 2024.
“28.8.2024 Thailand’s Sukhothai dam burst caused heavy flooding and a red-level warning has been issued. Be safe.”
The post, shared on a Facebook page with 35,000 followers, shows three photos of towns inundated with floodwater.
The photos, shared in similar Facebook post here and here, circulated as deadly floods swept across swathes of Thailand in August.
At least 24 people were killed in flash floods following heavy monsoon rains, according to the kingdom’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) (archived link).
In a separate incident, thousands of homes were flooded in central Sukhothai province after an embankment collapsed on August 26, the agency said (archived link).
A spokesperson for the Disaster Response Association of Thailand (DRAT) confirmed one of the photos shared on Facebook showed flooding after the embankment collapse.
The photo was posted on DRAT’s Facebook page, which said it was taken in Sukhothai on August 26 (archived link).
However, the other two photos shared in false Facebook posts are old.
A reverse image search on Google found the first photo in a Bangkok Post article from October 10, 2011 about flooding in Thailand’s Nakhon Sawan province (archived link).
The photo is credited to Bangkok Post journalist Chinawat Singha.
Thai authorities called an emergency five-day holiday to urge residents in flood-prone areas to avoid a massive deluge that killed some 360 people and flooded the Thai capital’s second airport, AFP reported at the time (archived link).
Singha’s photo featured in various local news reports on the floods, including Radio Free Asia and MGR Online (archived here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in a misleading Facebook post (left) and in the Bangkok Post’s report (right):
The second photo was published in a report by MGR Online from October 4, 2023 about floods in the Sukhothai region (archived link).
The Thai-language headline read: “Sukhothai asks Prime Minister Srettha for urgent flood measures to prevent repeated river bank collapses.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in a misleading Facebook post (left) and in MGR Online’s report (right):
MGR Online confirmed with AFP on September 16 that the picture was taken by their photographer who was covering the floods.
