Misleading: These dramatic videos show last year’s sandstorm in Xinjiang
On Feb. 17, a severe sandstorm swept through several cities in Xinjiang, enveloping them in dense dust and haze.
Many vehicles were reportedly damaged, and people were stranded due to low visibility. Meteorological observatories in the region had to issue various levels of warnings throughout the weekend.
Following the sandstorm, videos purporting to depict the weather conditions in Xinjiang began circulating on Chinese social media platforms. However, Annie Lab found that not all of them were taken recently.
Some news media even featured a couple of dated footage from previous sandstorms, which are quite common occurrences in Xinjiang.
A video posted on Weibo on Feb. 18, for example, shows a slightly reddish sandstorm approaching from afar and gradually obscuring the city’s skyline.
It was accompanied by a caption that translates to, “The scene is comparable to a science fiction movie, beyond what dread can convey,” with the hashtag #多名网友拍下新疆特强沙尘暴, indicating that “a number of netizens took videos of Xinjiang’s super strong sandstorm.”
This video was subsequently used by CTS News, a Taiwanese TV Channel, in their recent online broadcast. The same video and one of its screenshots were also utilized by other media outlets such as Sing Tao Headline and CTWANT.
Another video posted on Douyin, also on Feb. 18, featured a series of six footage segments, one of which shows a similar scene. Its overlaying text translates to, “Yesterday, there was a strong sandstorm in Xinjiang. Hope everything will be fine.”
The video was shared on X on the same day, with claims that it depicted recent events. At the time of writing, the social media posts together have over 30,000 likes, 2,600 comments, and 11,000 shares.
However, our investigations revealed that these videos did not show the mid-February sandstorm in Xinjiang. A version of the first video was posted on Douyin by a user named “902 film” on July 2, 2023.
The location information in the account’s bio suggests the user lives in Xinjiang. The user also put Hami, where the sandstorm hit last year, their hometown. The user also tagged “Yizhou District, Hami” as the location for that particular post.
We geolocated the area in the video on Baidu Map and can confirm its location as Yizhou District, Hami.
Similarly, the second video was found to be from a previous sandstorm event near Hami Railway Station in Yizhou District. According to CCTV, widespread strong sandstorms hit the area on July 2, 2023, and lasted for around one hour and a half.
At the time, this video was shared by many social media users and used by some media outlets.
Although we were unable to find the original source of this footage, we geolocated the area using Amap and verified that it was taken in Yizhou District, near Hami Railway Station.
In times of natural disasters such as sandstorms and earthquakes, outdated and misleading images and videos often circulate online.
Annie Lab has previously published similar fact-checking stories, debunking misleading claims about floods in Libya last year and the 2024 earthquake in Gansu.
