Old video of flooding at Chennai's Sathyabama College shared as recent

What is the claim?

A video circulating online purports to show three shirtless students from Chennai’s Sathyabama Engineering College wading through chest-deep water with luggage amid recent rainfall in the city.

Buses and gates bearing the college’s name can be seen in the background as crowds of students wade through the water. One individual says in Tamil (translated), “Don’t ever join this college. And if you do, don’t join the hostel.”

An X (formerly Twitter) user also shared the video with the claim, “Present situation in Satyabhama Eng. college, Chennai.” The post had 9,000 likes while writing this story. An archive of a similar post can be found here and was forwarded multiple times on WhatsApp. The video was shared by ET NOW, a business daily, India Today NE, and local news outlet V6 News Telugu. 

Screenshots of the claim circulating on social media and WhatsApp. (Source: Facebook/X/Instagram/WhatsApp/Modified by Logically Facts)

The video surfaced as Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, and neighboring areas grappled with a heavy downpour on October 15, 2024. On October 17, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an orange alert for seven districts in the southern Indian state, including Chennai.

However, our investigation found that the video of students leaving Sathyabama College by walking in flooded water is from December 2023, not from 2024.

What we found

Through reverse image search, we found a YouTube video (archived here) from December 15, 2023, by ‘Muskan Singh Vlogs’ titled “@sathyabama flood 2023..... Chennai @Michaung”. It shows similar visuals of people carrying their luggage on wooden planks with the college visible in the background.

We spotted two individuals from the viral claim in this 2023 footage shot from a different angle. At the 14-second mark, we noticed the same person from the viral video saying, “Don’t ever join this college.”

Comparison of the now-viral clip with the 2023 YouTube clip showing the same man talking in Tamil. (Source: Facebook/YouTube)

Cyclone Michaung, which struck parts of Tamil Nadu in December 2023, caused at least 13 deaths and displaced over 300,000 people. According to Careers 360, an educational news portal, students at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology were significantly impacted. The report noted that students were forced to evacuate their waterlogged hostels after enduring two days without food or electricity.

We also discovered an Instagram Reel dated December 6, 2023, featuring a segment of the now-viral video. Shared by the account 'sathyabamites' (archived here), the Reel is a montage of the flooded Sathyabama campus, showing students wading through chest-deep water with their luggage. This confirms that the video has been circulating since 2023 and is not connected to the recent floods in Chennai.

Comparison of the now-viral clip with the 2023 Instagram reel. (Source: Facebook/Instagram)

Logically Facts contacted the reception desk at Four Points by Sheraton, a hotel near the college in Sholinganallur, Chennai. They confirmed that neither the campus nor the surrounding area experienced flooding during the recent downpour, stating that the "situation is normal." 

Additionally, we spoke to Prema, the mother of a Sathyabama College student, who confirmed that there had been no flooding on campus this week.

The verdict

Our research shows that the video of a flooded Sathyabama college in Tamil Nadu's Chennai has been online since 2023, and it was misleadingly shared as recent.