Video of a water pipe bursting in Chandmari, Guwahati, is falsely shared as a cloudburst in Kolkata on 23 September 2025
Kolkata recorded nearly 250 mm of rain in just 24 hours on 23 September 2025, making it one of the heaviest downpours in decades. The deluge led to severe waterlogging, traffic disruptions, power cuts, flight delays, and several deaths, bringing much of the city to a standstill ahead of the Durga Puja season (here, here, and here).
In this context, a video is circulating on social media (here, here, and here) that claims to show a massive cloudburst in Kolkata on 23 September 2025. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The video shows a massive cloudburst in Kolkata during heavy rains on 23 September 2025.
Fact: The viral video does not depict a cloudburst in Kolkata on 23 September 2025. It actually depicts a water pipe bursting in Chandmari, Guwahati, Assam, on 20 September 2025, causing water to rise to 70–80 feet high and reach the rooftops of nearby three- to four-story buildings. The water spread across surrounding roads but did not flood any homes. While Kolkata saw heavy rain on 23 September 2025, the IMD did not classify it as a cloudburst, with the highest hourly rainfall at 98 mm. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To verify the claim, we searched online for reports of a cloudburst in Kolkata during the heavy rains on 23 September 2025. There were reports of a cloudburst-like event on that day. Although the India Meteorological Department (IMD) did not officially classify it as a cloudburst, several news outlets and experts noted that the event had cloudburst-like characteristics. The IMD reported the highest hourly rainfall as 98 mm, slightly below the 100 mm threshold generally used to define a cloudburst.
We then performed a reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video, which led us to a post by The Sentinel, dated 20 September 2025, featuring the same video, which confirms that it predates the heavy rains in Kolkata on 23 September 2025. The post stated that the video actually shows a water pipe bursting in Chandmari, Guwahati, sending a powerful stream nearly 70–80 feet high, creating a fountain-like scene that quickly spread water across surrounding roads. The sudden outflow surprised residents and passersby, but no homes were flooded. As crowds gathered across the city to pay tribute to late music icon Zubeen Garg, the usual heavy traffic in Chandmari was absent, preventing major disruptions. The incident has once again highlighted concerns over Guwahati’s recurring water pipe bursts.
Assam-based news outlets reported (here, here, here) that the water from the Chandmari pipe burst on 20 September 2025 reached the rooftops of three- to four-story buildings near the Chandmari flyover in Guwahati.
To sum up, the viral video claiming a massive cloudburst in Kolkata actually shows a water pipe bursting in Guwahati, Assam, on 20 September 2025.