Newswire
Rome: Lake Como, one of Italy’s most celebrated natural and tourist landmarks, is still very much intact, despite a viral social media video falsely claiming that the iconic northern Italian lake has completely dried up.
The sensational video, which has amassed more than 600,000 views on X and TikTok, depicts what appears to be a vast landscape of mud and rocks littered with stranded boats. It claims that water around the picturesque lakeside town of Bellagio had disappeared at an astonishing rate because of an alleged “geological rupture”.
But the dramatic images are entirely fabricated.
The footage was generated using artificial intelligence and circulated by a social media account that describes itself as an “AI News” outlet. The account, @naturevsia, carries a warning that its videos are AI-generated, yet the Lake Como footage was subsequently shared by users as genuine news.
The reality is markedly different.
Satellite imagery captured by the European Sentinel-2 satellite on August 13 clearly shows Lake Como still filled with water across its extensive basin. The lake, whose shoreline stretches for around 170 kilometres, remains a prominent feature of northern Italy’s landscape.
Further evidence came from webcam footage recorded on August 14 in Tremezzo, a town on the western shore of the lake. The images showed water levels remaining in place, directly contradicting the dramatic scenes presented in the viral video.
The false claim, however, appears to have gained traction partly because it was built around a genuine environmental issue.
Lake Como is experiencing declining water levels amid drought conditions affecting parts of Italy. By August 1, the lake’s water level had reportedly fallen at least 30.2 centimetres below the hydrographic zero, bringing it close to the low levels recorded four years earlier.
The falling level is a matter of concern, particularly as prolonged drought can affect waterways, agriculture, ecosystems and tourism. But the situation bears no resemblance to the extraordinary scenario portrayed in the AI-generated footage.
There is also no evidence of any geological rupture causing the lake to drain.
Lake Como is one of Europe’s deepest lakes, reaching a maximum depth of approximately 418 metres. A decline in its water level, even amid severe drought, therefore does not mean the lake is remotely close to disappearing.
The episode is nevertheless a striking example of the challenges posed by increasingly sophisticated generative artificial intelligence. Realistic-looking videos can now be produced within minutes and distributed to millions of people, making fabricated events appear remarkably authentic.
In this case, the AI-generated images exploited genuine concerns about drought and falling water levels to create a completely false narrative.
The truth is far less dramatic but important: Lake Como has not dried up. Its water levels are falling because of drought, but the world-famous lake remains firmly in place.
The viral images may have appeared convincing, but satellite observations and contemporary webcam footage leave little doubt that the spectacular disappearance of Lake Como exists only in an AI-generated video.
