An old video of a ferry capsizing after being battered by strong winds and waves has been recirculated by social media users who falsely claim it shows a deadly tourist boat sinking during a storm in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay on July 19, 2025. The clip was published earlier in Vietnamese media reports about the impact of Typhoon Yagi in September 2024, one of the region’s strongest storms that year.<\/p>\n
“Vietnam: A tourist boat sank while traveling in Ha Long Bay after facing strong sudden winds from storm Wipha, causing 34 fatalities,\u201d reads the Thai-language caption on an X post<\/a> dated July 19, 2025.<\/p>\n The caption continues: “Authorities are urgently searching for dozens of missing individuals.”<\/p>\n The post includes a video of a boat being lashed by wind and rain before slowly tilting to the right and capsizing.<\/p>\n At least 35 people were killed when the tourist boat capsized<\/a> during a storm on July 19 in what some have called Ha Long Bay’s worst disaster (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false X post, with a red X added by AFP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n However, local media quoted the director of the country’s National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting saying the thunderstorms in northern Vietnam were not caused by the influence of Tropical Storm Wipha in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n The same video of the boat sinking was linked to the July disaster\u00a0elsewhere<\/a> on X<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, as well as in English<\/a> and Burmese<\/a>-language posts.\u00a0 <\/p>\n But a reverse image search<\/a> on Google found the video was published online months earlier in reports about a different storm.<\/p>\n The footage was published on the verified\u00a0Facebook page<\/a> of Vietnamese media outlet VTC News on September 7, 2024 with the caption “Tourist boat capsizing in Ha Long Bay” (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n