FACT CHECK: Viral photo of elderly couple stranded amid flood is from Mexico, not PH

Claim: A photo shows an elderly couple clinging to each other as floodwater surrounds them during the onslaught of Typhoon Tino (Kalmaegi) in the Philippines.

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The Facebook post bearing the claim was uploaded on November 5 and has 123 likes, 13 comments, and 12 shares as of writing. It has also circulated on TikTok and other Facebook accounts, where it has gone viral with over 1 million views.

Text overlaid on the image reads: “Netizen: The living Jack and Rose,” referencing characters from the American romantic adventure film Titanic (1997), depicting the 1912 sinking of the luxury passenger ship that struck an iceberg and left more than 1,500 people dead.

The post’s caption states:“An image captured in Cebu City has touched the hearts of many online. It shows an elderly couple holding each other tightly in the middle of a flood caused by Typhoon Tino.”

The post circulated amid the devastation of Typhoon Tino in the country, bringing destructive winds that destroyed infrastructure and torrential rain that triggered massive floods.

The facts: The image circulating online was not taken in the Philippines. A reverse image search shows that the image was from a video posted on TikTok on October 11, 2025, taken in Poza Rica in Veracruz state, capturing the floods that ravaged eastern and central Mexico.

According to a France 24 news report, the video shows Hilario Reynosa and Elodia Reyes holding onto each other as floodwaters rose, until a neighbor rescued them using a rowboat.

Multiple international news outlets, including AFP, ABC7, BBC, and CBS News, shared the video.

In a November fact check article, AFP also debunked posts misrepresenting the image of the Mexican couple as a photo from the Cebu flood, and confirmed the location of the viral images through Google Street View imagery of the couple’s neighborhood in Poza Rica.

AFP also reported that Elodia Reyes passed away on October 27.

Typhoon in the Philippines:Typhoon Tino (Kalmaegi), the Philippines’ deadliest tropical cyclone of 2025, exited the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) on November 6 after devastating the Visayas and parts of Mindanao.

Entering PAR as a tropical storm on November 2, Tino made landfall eight times, including in Southern Leyte, Cebu, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Iloilo, Guimaras, Antique, and Palawan, bringing torrential rains and massive flooding.

Cebu was hit hardest, with communities still recovering from a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck weeks earlier. As of November 9, the province recorded at least 158 deaths, with the most casualties in Liloan, Compostela, and Cebu City, where floods were described as worse than those caused by Typhoon Odette in 2021. – Marjuice Destinado/Rappler.com

Marjuice Destinado is a senior political science student at Cebu Normal University (CNU) and an alumna of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship of Rappler for 2025.