An old photo from Bangladesh is falsely shared as the condition in flood-hit Bihar

Photo of a family, sitting on the top of their flood-hit house is being shared on social media claiming it as the condition of houses in Bihar because of the recent floods. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.

Claim: Family sitting on the top of their flood-hit house in Bihar.

Fact: The photo shared in the post was shot during the floods in Bangladesh. Sharing this photo, many articles described the conditions faced by the people of Bangladesh because of the floods and riverbank erosions. This photo has nothing to do with the recent floods in Bihar. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.

On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, a similar photo was found in an article published on the official website of  ‘PERMACULTURE Research Institute’. Highlighting the importance of Sundar cropping, the article mentioned about the adverse condition of people in Bangladesh because of the floods and riverbank erosions. In the article, the photo is credited to Shiree, Practical Action Bangladesh. Using this information when we searched for the photo in ‘EEP Shiree website’, we found a link that had the ‘flickr’ link of the organization. It is mentioned under the photo that it was shot during the year 2011, as a part of the programme ‘Practical Action Bangladesh’. A similar photo was found in an article published by ‘weADAPT’ online platform. In the article, they proposed a project for promoting household-level adaptation practices to deal with flood and waterlogging in south-central coastal region of Bangladesh. This photo has nothing to do with Bihar.

With most parts of Bangladesh being less than 10 metres above the sea level, more than one million people become Environmental refugees every year as their houses and Livestock are washed away by the floodwaters and riverbank erosions. Several banks promoted the Climate-smart projects in Bangladesh. Documents related to that funding could be seen here and here.

To sum it up, an old photo related to the floods in Bangladesh is falsely shared as the condition of the flood-hit Bihar.

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