Claim: A video shows a severe thunderstorm thrashing Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport amid the recent wave of hailstorms and heavy rain in Pakistan’s northern region.
Fact: The video is not recent. In fact, it can be traced as far back as May 2021.
On 18 April 2025, Instagram user @ismail_baloch_pti posted (archive) a video showing a severe thunderstorm at an airport where the arrivals and departures signboards swung around in the strong winds.
The accompanying caption reads, “Today Best Video 🔥🔥🔥🔥,” whereas text superimposed on the video is as follows:
“تازه ترین پشاور ایئرپورٹ 😥
[Latest from the Peshawar Airport]”
Hailstorms in Pakistan’s north
Some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar, have seen an erratic weather pattern in the past few weeks, from witnessing heatwaves to heavy rains, thunderstorms, and hail.
The province experienced heavy rains and hailstorm, Dawn reported on 19 April 2025, with six people injured in a lightning strike. “The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) issued a flood advisory,” it added.
Prior to that, on 17 April 2025, the publication had reported that a “freak hailstorm upended” Pakistan’s northern region, including Punjab and KP. In the federal capital, Islamabad, “golf ball-sized” hailstones damaged property and deaths were reported in both provinces. Flash floods took place in KP “particularly on the main Peshawar-Torkham Road”, the news article added.
The Washington Post reported that roads in KP “were washed out” during the freak weather in April, which is “part of [the] thunderstorm season in the region”.
The storm in Islamabad was termed a “White Disaster”, which also destroyed several windshields and lasted over half an hour.
Pakistan is one of the countries most impacted by and highly vulnerable to climate change. Arab News reported on 18 April that “experts say there is evidence suggesting a link between climate change and increased hailstorm frequency and intensity” and that “a warming climate can create conditions more conducive to large hail formation”.
Fact or Fiction?
When Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video, we came across multiple social media posts, a news article, and a blog post from May 2021 that carry the same clip.
In a 4 May 2021 post on Facebook, an NGO called the Peshawar Youth Organization provided a weather update, writing, “Pease (sic) avoid unnecessary travel in your cars as the current winds and heavy storms system will persist for next few hours.. The video shows the terrible storm at Peshawar airport causing damage to both the property and passengers..”
In his X (formerly Twitter) post from the same day, Shabbir Hussain Imam — a journalist and editorialist at Daily Aaj Peshawar — also shared the video and wrote, “Quality of development work recently done at @PeshawarAirport . Hopefully & for sure @PCAAOfficial & others will not take any notice of the corruption exposed by weather!”
To corroborate the location, we checked pictures and videos available on Google Maps and found at least five indicating that it is indeed the Bacha Khan International Airport, Peshawar. These were posted in April 2025, April 2023, December 2022, March 2022, and January 2022.
The tubular guardrails — which provide protection to buildings and other infrastructures from accidental or intentional vehicular intrusions — just outside the entrance area, the dark lower portions and beige-coloured upper portions of the pillars, and the general structure confirm that the video is of Bacha Khan International Airport.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the video is unrelated to the current erratic weather and thunderstorms in Pakistan’s north.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the video posted here on Facebook, here on Threads, and here on TikTok.
It was also shared here, here, here, here, here, and here on YouTube.
Conclusion: The viral clip, while authentic, is not recent. In fact, it can be traced as far back as May 2021.
Background image in cover photo: peshawarx
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