DN hänger på Fake News-våg om Victoriafallen

As Southern Africa battles one of its worst droughts in decades, numerous media reports have stoked fears that Victoria Falls, bordering Zimbabwe and Zambia, is running dry.

The claims were sparked by a YouTube video showing a long stretch of bare cliff-face at Livingstone, on the Zambian side of the world's largest waterfall, in which a woman says she is praying for rain.

However, the video and subsequent media reports downplayed the seasonal dry period which affects the water flow every year, as well as the fact that the Zimbabwean side of the waterfall has been faring much better.

The video has racked up more than 40,000 views since September.

It led to some social media users responding with photos and videos as evidence that the situation at Victoria Falls, while troubling, had been exaggerated and offered an incomplete picture.

In fact, the volumes of water crashing through the Unesco World Heritage Site are typically affected by seasonal rainfall, and there have already been signs of improvement since the YouTube video was posted in September.

The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) shares daily data on flow measurements taken at the Falls, a key station on the river.

According to their data, the lowest flows recorded were during the 1995/96 season.

And while the water flow this November did reach lows not seen since 1995, measurements on December 2 had increased during the week under review, closing at 227 cubic metres per second.

That's slightly higher than the reading on the same date last year: 220 cubic metres per second.