Claim: A video claims to show Cyclone Biparjoy making landfall in Gujarat, India.
Fact: The video is old. In fact, it shows huge waves crashing on the coast of San Sebastian in Spain.
Fact or Fiction?
On 12 June 2023, PakWeather.com (@Pak_Weather) tweeted a video claiming that it shows Cyclone Biparjoy passing by the coast of Gujarat in India.
“Under the influence of very severe cyclonic storm “Biparjoy” in Arabian sea which is passing nearby Gujarat coast, quite extreme sea-tides are being observed at Madhavpur (Gujarat),” their tweet reads.
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the video clip and found an article by Express UK through Yandex. The article published on 22 November 2022 is titled “Spain weather warning as seven regions placed on orange alert for Storm Denise.”
It carries a similar photo to the viral video, which is captioned, “Spain weather warning as seven regions placed on orange alert for Storm Denise (Image: GETTY).”
Baidu, a Chinese search engine, turned up this photo with the caption “The waves of San Sebastián, Guipuzcoa, Spain.”
Soch Fact Check searched YouTube with the keywords, “waves San Sebastián storm denise” and came across a video posted by NDTV on 30 December 2020. The video is titled, “CRAZY STORM! Huge waves are crashing the coast of San Sebastian, Spain.”
A comparison graphic below shows the similarities between this video and the viral video based on key indicators:
The Indian met office said that Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall in Gujarat, crossing the Saurashtra-Kutch coast near Gujarat’s Jakhau port between 17:00 and 18:00 GMT on 15 June 2023, according to a report by Al Jazeera.
Virality:
The video was found here, here and here on Twitter.
The tweet by @Pak_Weather gained significant traction with 84,700 views, 621 likes, 178 retweets and five quote tweets.
On Facebook, the claim was posted here, here, here, here and here.
The video also made rounds in 2021 on social media and was falsely linked to Tauktae Cyclone in Gujarat.
Conclusion: The viral video has been passed off as Cyclone Biparjoy, but it actually shows huge waves crashing the coast of San Sebastian in Spain.