Does a viral clip of a hailstorm actually show India under siege from massive chunks of hail? No, that's not true: Earlier versions of the claim said it happened in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Lead Stories found multiple inconsistencies in the video that strongly pointed to AI.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published by @IvarVikg on X on May 25, 2026. The Arabic caption read:
سبحان الله تساقط كميه من البرد 😭
على بعض المدن الهنديه وهدم
بعض المحلات التجاريه وتكسير
السيارات 🐎
As translated by Google Translate to English, it meant:
Subhan Allah! A massive hailstorm struck several Indian cities -- destroying shops and smashing cars.
This is what the thumbnail from the attached video looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @IvarVikg on X.com.)
The earliest version of the claim found by Lead Stories began to circulate on April 27, 2026, on TikTok. Those posts stated that the video showed Dhaka, which is in Bangladesh (archived here), not in India.
That week, Dhaka saw some severe weather conditions, as seen in the Time and Date data (archived here), but the video in question did not show that.
(Image source: Time and Date.)
AI detection tool Hive Moderation found that "the video is 95.3% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content," as shown in the screenshot of the results below:
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Another tool, AI or Not, said the clip was 66% likely to be AI:
(Image source: AI or Not.)
The video also contained several artifacts that pointed to the conclusion that it was artificially generated.
The pipe meant to hold up the roof of the fruit and vegetable stand didn't even touch it:
(Image source: post by @IvarVikg on X.com.)
Hailstones produced damage inconsistently. For example, in one case, the car sustained no damage at all:
(Image source: post by @IvarVikg on X.com.)
But seconds later, roughly the same-sized hail smashed its roof:
(Image source: post by @IvarVikg on X.com.)
One person's shirt changed color from black to red in one second:
(Image source: post by @IvarVikg on X.com.)
None of that would have happened in real footage.
