Fact Check: These images do not show the recent floods in Telangana

Hyderabad: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been experiencing severe rainfall over the past few days, leading to devastating floods that have claimed more than 35 lives. Both states are dealing with significant damage to infrastructure, including roads, railways and agricultural lands.

Against this backdrop, images of a damaged road and a rescue operation on a boat in a submerged locality are being circulated, claiming that the images show the recent devastation in Telangana. Those sharing are also targeting the Telangana Congress government.

Sharing the images, an X user wrote, “Why are those hypocrites who made fun of Gujarat’s flood-hit roads by calling them Gujarat model, silent on the floods in Telangana?” (Archive)

Sharing the image of the damaged road, another X user wrote, “This is the state of a road in CONg-ruled Telangana which is being devastated by floods Telangana has never been ruled by BJP so whom will LKFC & Gang mock? Asking because 2 days ago they were sharing pics of a damaged road in Vadodara to mock the Modi & Gujarat model.”

Several X users and media outlets shared the image of the damaged road claiming it to be from Telangana.

Click here, here and here to view the post and articles. (Archive) (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The image of the damaged road is from Andhra Pradesh, not Telangana. While the image of the rescue operation is from Telangana, it has been in circulation since at least 2020.

Image 1

Upon conducting a reverse image search of the damaged road, it was found to be reported by the Telugu daily Eenadu on September 2. According to the report, due to continuous heavy rains, the canals and roads in Gannavaram and Unguturu mandals—located in Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna and West Godavari districts, respectively—were breached. The NDRF road in these areas was washed away by floodwaters.

We also found the image of the broken road posted by the X and Facebook accounts of Krishna district, represented by the district collector. The posts indicated that National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) employees are residing in Kondapavuluru Village of Krishna district, where their access is restricted due to the main approach road being cut off and traffic being halted. It also mentioned that Gudivada RDO (Revenue Divisional Officer) P Padmavathi inspected the area where the road had been damaged. (Archive)

Faizan Ahmed, additional collector of Telangana’s Nirmal district, addressed a user who had made a false claim, clarifying that the damaged road is located in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.

Image 2

A reverse image search of the image showing the rescue operation led us to a report by the digital portal Scroll, which carried the image in 2020. It credited the image to Mongabay, an American conservation news web portal.

According to the image description, it depicts the Hyderabad Disaster Response Force (DRF) team conducting a rescue operation in a submerged area of Hyderabad.

We also found the image published by Mongabay in a report on November 2, 2020. According to the portal, they had specially arranged the image and showed the Hyderabad DRF team engaged in a rescue operation in a submerged area in Hyderabad.

Hence, we conclude that both images do not show the recent devastation or the rescue operations in Telangana. The claim is false.