The photo surfaced when Typhoon Yagi tore over Vietnam’s densely populated Red River Delta, a major agricultural region and home to major manufacturing centers, is causing damage to factories and infrastructure and flooding farmland (archived linkAt least 292 people have died in the country, authorities said.
The storm also caused the worst flood in Myanmar’s recent history, according to the UN World Food Programme, with the country’s ruling junta reporting 226 deaths (archived link).
The photo was shared along with similar false claims on Facebook here, here And here.
However, a reverse search on Google revealed that it was published by The Associated Press (AP) press agency on November 10, 2013 (archived link).
The caption of the photo reads in part: “A woman walks past damaged houses in Tacloban city, Leyte province in the central Philippines on Sunday, November 10, 2013. The city is still littered with debris from damaged homes as many people complain of shortages of food, water and no electricity since Typhoon Haiyan hit their province.”
Below is a screenshot of the photo used in the fake messages (left) and the AP photo (right):
Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, generated tsunami-like waves that destroyed Central islands of the Philippines in November 2013, killing more than 6,000 people (archived link).
Tacloban, the capital of Leyte province, bore the brunt of the storm and was almost completely destroyed by five-meter-high storm surges that swept across poor coastal communities.
The AP photo was also published in other reports about Haiyan here And here (archived link here And here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about Typhoon Yagi here.
