Image shows collapsed dam in Ukraine, not India

New Delhi suspended a key water treaty with Islamabad days before the nuclear-armed rivals saw their worst clashes in decades, but online rumours that India's Kishanganga dam was closed and then collapsed are baseless. The image shared in the false posts dates to 2023 reports about a damaged Ukrainian structure.

"India's Kishanganga Dam that was closed to stop water flow to Pakistan has collapsed," reads a Thai-language X post shared May 6, 2025.

It features an aerial shot of water flowing through a damaged dam.

Similar posts in English, Hindi and Urdu spread as India and Pakistan traded tit-for-tat diplomatic measures following an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir that New Delhi blames on Islamabad. Pakistan rejects the accusations.

The crisis has since worsened, with nearly 50 people killed on both sides -- mainly in Pakistan -- since India launched air strikes targeting "terrorist camps" and sparking the worst clashes in decades (archived link).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed that water from India that once flowed across borders will be stopped, days after suspending a key water treaty with Pakistan (archived link).

But as of May 9, there had been no official reports that India had closed off the Kishanganga dam or that it had suffered any recent damage.

A reverse image search combined with keyword searches on Google found the picture closely matches a photo published June 6, 2023 on the website of satellite imagery firm Planet Labs (archived link).

"In early June 2023, the Russia-controlled Nova Kakhovka Dam across the Dnipro River in Ukraine collapsed, flooding several downstream cities," the caption says.

Multiple media organisations, including Reuters, BBC Russian, CNN and Caixin Global, published the image in reports about the breach of the dam in Ukraine's Kherson region, which prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents (archived here, here, here and here).

While the exact timing and cause of the initial damage remained unclear, both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of responsibility, according to the reports.

AFP has previously debunked other claims related to the India-Pakistan conflict.