Heavy rain, driven by the indirect effects of Cyclone Arnab in the Bay of Bengal, pushed the Kalu Ganga past its minor flood level in Ratnapura on October 26, 2026. Low-lying areas and roads around Ratnapura town went underwater, and many people, worried about their homes and relatives, turned to social media for the latest footage.
At that very moment, a video of fish jumping and swimming through a flooded living room spread fast, captioned “The situation in Ratnapura right now.” Was it really filmed in Ratnapura, or did it come from somewhere else? We checked. Here are the posts that shared it.
Social Media Posts:
The video appeared on several Sinhala Facebook pages and accounts on October 26. One post read, “My goodness, fish inside the house! The situation in Ratnapura right now.” Another account shared the same clip as “The situation in Ratnapura’s big old houses right now.”
On October 27, a Tamil news page posted the same video as a news card that read, roughly, “A house afloat and fish leaping at play! Sudden floods shock Ratnapura!”
Facebook 1 | Archived Link | Facebook 2 | Archived Link | Facebook 3
Claim Investigated: The video shows fish jumping in floodwater that entered a house in Ratnapura during the Kalu Ganga floods of October 26 and 27.
Fact Check:
Before examining the video, we used official data to check what actually happened in Ratnapura that day.
Media Footage Showed Flooded Roads and Low-Lying Areas, Not Fish Inside Homes
Footage aired by television channels on October 26 showed low-lying areas and roads within the Ratnapura Municipal Council limits underwater. One news report, here, said the Ratnapura–Alupotha road was flooded at Ath Oya, halting traffic, and that low-lying areas in the Ketaliyampalla, Kapugampitiya, Kahangama and Godigamuwa Grama Niladhari divisions were under water. Another channel showed flooding in Elapatha, Karangoda and Dimiyawa, here.
These visuals show people wading through water that had collected on roads and in low-lying areas. None of the official notices or mainstream news reports we checked mentioned, or showed, fish entering a house in Ratnapura.
Local Journalists Said They Saw No Such Scene
We also spoke to several regional journalists in the Ratnapura District. They had been reporting from the flooded areas and said they had not seen anything like the scene in the video. Residents, too, had not said that fish came into their homes.
The journalists agreed that fish have entered homes with floodwater during major floods in the past. This time, however, Ratnapura saw only minor flooding.
The Video Was Posted on Instagram 14 Days Before the Floods
Since no such scene was reported in Ratnapura, we took several frames from the video and ran a reverse image search. It led us to the Instagram account Panit Wongchiam (panitwongchiam), which had posted the video on October 12, 2026. The original video is here.
The flood warning for the Kalu Ganga was issued on October 26. So, the video had been online for 14 days before the Ratnapura floods.
A side-by-side look at the viral video’s opening frame and the Instagram video’s cover image makes the match clear. The pictures on the wall, the calendar, the door with the red curtain, the wooden chair and the table are all in the same places.
The account posts several videos a day, and many of its recent clips center on animals, including fish. Within two days of the fish video, it posted another clip showing the interior of the same house, and that one carried an AI label. The similarities between the two videos are shown below.
AI Detection Tools Also Identified It as AI-Generated
We also ran the viral video through tools that detect AI-generated images and videos. They, too, identified it as a video created with AI.
The Same House Went Viral as Floods in Different Countries
The video was not limited to Ratnapura. On October 26, it was shared on YouTube as rain in Chennai, India, here, and on Facebook as a flooded house in a place called ‘Nyakuron’, here. A fan account on X posted it with a joke caption, here.
According to a report published on October 17 by a Turkish fact-checking organisation, another video of a fish swimming in what appears to be the same room had spread on October 14 as footage of flooding in Istanbul. Pointing to Thai-language posters on the walls, and to the fact that the original versions were posted by Southeast Asian accounts with AI labels, the organisation concluded that the video was AI-generated. Its report is here.
Cyclone Arnab Moved Towards India and the Kalu Ganga Receded, but the Risk Remained
According to the Department of Meteorology’s forecast issued at 4 p.m. on October 28, the extremely severe cyclonic storm Arnab had crossed the coast of Andhra Pradesh in India, and its influence on Sri Lanka’s weather was gradually easing. Several spells of rain were still possible in the Sabaragamuwa and Western provinces, and Ratnapura was expected to get several spells of rain on October 29. The forecast is here.
According to the Irrigation Department’s water level report at 3 p.m. on October 28, the water level at the Ratnapura gauge fell and stood at 6.09 metres. That was below the minor flood level of 7.50 metres but still above the alert level of 5.20 metres. The Millakanda (Kalawellawa) gauge in the lower Kalu Ganga basin was still at minor flood level at that time. The report is here.
The flood warning for the Kalu Ganga was extended by another 24 hours, until 1.30 p.m. on October 29, as shown here. The National Building Research Organisation kept landslide warnings in place for 12 Divisional Secretariat divisions in the Ratnapura District, though all of them were lowered by one level. That notice is here.
According to Disaster Management Centre data on the morning of October 28, bad weather had affected 21,218 people from 5,696 families across 17 districts. One person had died, five were injured and three were missing. Two houses were completely destroyed and 462 partly damaged, while 173 families were staying in safe locations. The figures are here. These numbers reflect the damage across the country; we could not confirm the latest figures for the Ratnapura District alone.
People in low-lying and landslide-prone areas should follow the official advice of the Disaster Management Centre and the Department of Meteorology. At times like these, sharing AI videos as real footage can mislead people about the actual situation and cause needless panic.
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Conclusion:
The video claiming to show fish jumping in floodwater inside a Ratnapura house is AI-generated. It was posted on an Instagram account on October 12, 2026, 14 days before the floods, and has also been shared as flood footage from Chennai and other places.
The Irrigation Department and the Disaster Management Centre confirmed that the Kalu Ganga rose above minor flood level on October 26 and 27, putting low-lying parts of Ratnapura under water. However, no official report, media footage or account from local journalists mentioned fish entering homes.
