Does a real video show an F-16 drop a bomb on a dam, causing the floods in Nepal? No, that's not true: The video has been circulating on social media since May 2026, predating the Aug. 26, 2026, flash flood in Nepal. Early copies of the video have an AI watermark and were published at the same time as a series of similar fake videos of jets dropping bombs on dams.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @arashi_flame account on X on Aug. 26, 2026. It read:
🇳🇵The floods in Nepal were caused by an act of sabotage; focus on the bombing by the F-16.
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @arashi_flame on X.)
The video on X has text captioning which reads:
The floods in Nepal were caused by an act of sabotage; focus on the bombing by the F-16.
There are two clips in this video. The footage of the second clip, from 21 seconds to 47 seconds, is real. It shows CCTV footage of the disaster from the border at Gyirong Port near the Nepal-China border. The Associated Press published the footage on YouTube Aug. 27, 2026 (archived here).
The first 21-second clip in the X video is an AI-generated video. This video has been circulating on social media since at least May 10, 2026, when it was posted to Facebook by the account @abw.mntzr.l.bwdy (archived here). The Facebook post is a repost, bearing the handle of a TikTok account, @user7161815306325. At the time of writing, the video is not publicly visible on TikTok among the videos published by that account in May 2026.
The video on Facebook shows the X video was cropped in both size and length. It is 31 seconds -- that is longer than the 21-second clip on X. The Facebook video also reveals that the X video was cropped off just above the top of the dam. The Facebook video shows the lake behind the dam, the hills on the far side of the lake, the distant horizon, the sky, and critically -- a scrolling creator's watermark, GEM, and an AI watermark in the upper left corner (pictured below).
(Image source: post by @abw.mntzr.l.bwdy on Facebook.)
Another account, @javed_khan_781257 on Instagram, posted the video on May 13, 2026 (archived here). Because the date of publishing on Instagram is three days behind the video's appearance on Facebook, it does not suggest, or prove, this account is the source of the video. But thumbnail images (pictured below) from the @javed_khan_781257 reels (archived here) published around that time show that someone was making videos of fighter jets blowing up dams and performing maneuvers over water and mountains. Several of these videos have the same AI and GEM watermarks as the video in question.
(Image source: reels page of @javed_khan_781257 on Instagram.)
