Photograph of waves crashing ashore near village wasn't taken during Storm Eunice in Feb 2022
Photograph of waves crashing ashore near village wasn't taken during Storm Eunice in Feb 2022
(Reuters) - A photograph of waves crashing ashore in a coastal town was not captured in February 2022 and likely originated as satire, although some users online were duped into thinking that the photograph was taken in Wales during storms that battered the U.K. in February 2022.
One user shared the image on Twitter with a caption that reads: “Amazing scenes here in Abergavenny this morning”.
The post had over 22,000 likes and more than 3,000 shares at the time of writing.
Abergavenny is about 25 miles inland from the coast, and subsequent Tweets by the same user suggest the post was intended as satire, although others shared it thinking it was taken during Storm Eunice or Storm Franklin which made landfall in the U.K. and Ireland in the last week.
One user shared the photograph on Facebook and said: “Wow!!! Scary stuff!! Just heard that Blaenau Ffestiniog is getting battered by waves as well”. Blaenau Ffestiniog is also many miles inland.
Another said: “Yesterday’s storm must have been the strongest storm on record”.
The photograph is not recent, however, and has been online since at least 2014.
The image features in a guide blog about Cornwall, England, published in February 2014.
The town pictured is Sennen in Cornwall, England. Other photographs of waves crashing by the town can be found on the photograph agency, Alamy.
A similar image of waves crashing by Sennan, Cornwall, was published in The Mirror in February 2015.
Reuters has previously addressed miscaptioned photographs and videos shared by users online falsely linked to Storm Eunice in February 2022.
VERDICT
Satire. An image of waves crashing alongside a coastal town was not taken during storms that made landfall in the U.K. and Ireland in February 2022. The post was likely intended as satire, although some users were duped into thinking the photograph was taken recently.
