Year-old photos of Manila floods go viral, confuse netizens

A slideshow of heavily-flooded Manila making the rounds in social media on Monday is actually a year-old post and not of current floods, GMA News Online verified on Monday.

Netizens have been sharing the link from the UK's The Telegraph and reposting photos numerous times, believing these images to be from the ongoing weather situation in the metropolis.

 

The date stamp of the tweet was apparently overlooked by many, aggravated by the fact that there is no date attached to the slideshow itself.

The slideshow was uploaded last year by the Telegraph at the height of similar "Habagat floods", which were also caused by rains from an enhanced southwest monsoon.

 

Although official current rainfall data has yet to be released, anecdotal evidence suggests that the current floods are not yet as extensive as the 2012 floods depicted in the slideshow.

 

"This handout photo taken on August 8, 2012 and released by the Department of National Defense (DND) shows an aerial shot of flooding around Bulacan, north of Manila," reads the EXIF information accompanying the first photo in the slideshow. — TJD, GMA News