Since early August 2025, Punjab and Haryana have been witnessing heavy rainfall, which has left over 30 people dead in Punjab. Several areas remain under red alert, with the Army deployed for rescue operations, while farmlands across both states have also suffered damage (here, here and here). Amid this, a photo (here, here and here) went viral on social media showing a man escaping floodwaters with a few grains on a raft, claimed to be from the recent floods in Punjab and Haryana. Let’s find the truth behind this photo.
Claim: The viral photo shows a man escaping Punjab–Haryana floods with food grains on a raft.
Fact: The photo is not from the recent floods in Punjab or Haryana. It dates back to August 2017, when devastating floods hit Bihar, killing over 500 people and displacing lakhs. The same photo was published by several media outlets in 2017, with the location credited to Bihar. Hence, the claim is MISLEADING.
To verify the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to several news reports from 2017 (here and here). The reports confirm that the photo is from Bihar, not Punjab or Haryana. During the August 2017 floods in Bihar, over 500 people were killed and 1.72 crore were affected, with 8.5 lakh rendered homeless. Araria district was the worst hit, where families lost homes, livestock, grain stocks, and businesses. The viral photo shows a villager from Araria carrying foodgrain on a raft while swimming to higher ground, capturing the scale of the crisis.
Several media outlets had used this same photo in their 2017 reports on the Bihar floods (here, here and here). Stock image website Alamy also uploaded a similar image, captioned: “Purnea, India. 16th Aug, 2017. Villagers wade through flood with their belongings towards higher area at the Purnea district of India’s eastern state Bihar on 15 August 2017.”
Additionally, while several media outlets have reported actual photos of the ongoing flood situation in Punjab and Haryana (here and here), the viral photo is unrelated and actually dates back to Bihar’s 2017 floods.
To sum up, a 2017 photo of floods in Bihar is being falsely shared as visuals from the recent floods in Punjab and Haryana.
