How conspiracy theories about Spain’s deadly floods spread online

euronews (in English)

The tragedy that left over 200 people dead has sparked a deluge of disinformation, including claims that the extreme weather was artificially engineered.

Transcript

00:00How conspiracies about Spain's floods spread online.

00:08Weeks after devastating flash floods claimed at least 200 lives in Spain, conspiracy theories

00:14continue to run rampant online.

00:18Social media users have falsely speculated that the tragedy was intentionally provoked

00:24and not a natural disaster, despite the Spanish weather agency warning four days in advance

00:31that the torrential rain was on its way.

00:33These videos circulating online claim that vessels spotted off the Valencian coast artificially

00:40altered the weather with high-frequency transmitters, causing excessive rainfall.

00:46They are falsely described as HAARP ships, referring to the Alaska-based HAARP program

00:51that studies the upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere, but which cannot control or interfere

00:57with the weather.

00:58The ship in question in these videos is in fact a floating power plant called the Karadeniz

01:04Powership Osman Khan, owned by Turkish firm Car Powership.

01:09We trace back the footage to this promotional video published by the company in 2017.

01:16News agency AFP verified the ship's position and found that it has been stationed in Ghana

01:21since 2019.

01:24There is no evidence that it was seen near Valencia.

01:27Yet we found posts spreading this theory in at least six languages and often left unverified

01:33by the platforms.

01:35Other social media users have spread unfound claims that Morocco used these ships to cause

01:41the storm and destroy Spanish agricultural harvests in order to ship more Moroccan produce

01:47into Europe.

01:48This is just one example in a whole playbook of conspiracies that have been spreading since

01:54the tragedy.

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