Old footage of building collapsing in Casablanca falsely linked to 2023 Morocco quake

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 12, 2023 at 11:22
2 min read
By AFP Morocco, AFP Kenya
Translation and adaptation James OKONG'O

A powerful earthquake hit Morocco on September 8, 2023, toppling buildings and sending people racing into the streets. Soon after, a video emerged online claiming to show a building collapsing as the quake struck. But the clip has been shared out of context: the footage, while authentic, was taken in 2020 when an old and dilapidated building crumbled in Morocco’s largest city, Casablanca.

“Powerful earthquake kills at least 296 people in Morocco,” reads the caption of the clip published on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 9, 2023.

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on September 11, 2023

The clip, which shows a building crumbling at night, was also shared on Instagram and TikTok.

On September 8, 2023, a powerful 6.8-magnitude quake struck 72 kilometres southwest of tourist hub Marrakesh, wiping out entire villages in the hills of the Atlas mountains (archived here).

Two days later, a 4.5-magnitude aftershock rattled the same region.

The quake is the deadliest to hit the North African country in decades, with a death toll of more than 2,000 people. Rescuers have warned that the toll is expected to rise (archived here).

As of September 12, rescuers were still combing debris, hoping to rescue people buried in the rubble.

But the video circulating online is unrelated to the devastating Morocco quake.

Old clip

AFP Fact Check found that the clip shows the 2020 collapse of a decrepit building, first explained in this Arabic language debunk (archived here).

Using the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the footage, we found the clip in an August 2020 French-language news report (archived here).

According to the report, the footage shows a building that collapsed in Casablanca, Morocco, in August 2020.

The footage was also shared on YouTube and X (then Twitter) three years ago (archived here and here).

At the time, local Moroccan media also published a video showing the collapse of the three-storey structure.

Prior to the incident, local authorities had classified the building unfit for human habitation (archived here).

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