Indian Twitter is making fun of this Photoshop fail from the prime minister's press office

This week, record rains have caused heavy flooding in the south Indian city of Chennai and its surrounds. The floods have left 269 people dead in the state of Tamil Nadu, according to local media. India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) posted this photo of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surveying the disaster zone from his plane yesterday. But on closer inspection, there was something not quite right about the photo:

As many Indian Twitter users immediately pointed out, the photo had been altered by the press office to change the view out of the plane window to a more close-up image of the destruction on the ground.

“Out of the seven pictures released, one picture used the technique of merging two pictures. This is being referred to as ‘photoshopping’ in sections of media,” the PIB said in a statement, after deleting the original tweet (captured above by a Twitter user before it disappeared). “This happened due to error of judgment and the picture was subsequently deleted. PIB regrets the release of the above mentioned picture and inconvenience caused is regretted.”

But it was too late to stop the gleeful Photoshopping spree of making fun of Modi’s photo on Twitter:

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua also took the opportunity for a dig at Modi:

Modi did actually survey the damage in the state up close, and committed federal relief funds for the recovery effort.