Video of building collapse in Turkey falsely linked to Morocco earthquake

"Morocco earthquake, a building collapsed... Ugh, this shoddy construction did people great harm," reads a Chinese-language post on Weibo from September 11.

It shows a clip of a tower crashing to the ground, with text overlay that says: "September 9 Morocco, earthquake building collapse."

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A screenshot of the false claim on Weibo

The video surfaced in similar posts in English, Spanish, Arabic and Thai after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit Al-Haouz province south of Marrakesh on September 8, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more.

The disaster was the nation's deadliest quake in more than six decades, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more.

However, the video is not related to the Morocco earthquake and was in fact filmed in Turkey after a huge tremor in February there that killed more than 55,000 people.

Turkey quake

AFP carried out reverse image searches on Google and found a TikTok video published on February 13 -- more than six months before the Morocco earthquake.

The clip shows the same eight seconds of film, only mirrored with the footage flipped horizontally and running in slow motion.

Below are screenshot comparisons between the clip shared in false posts (left) and the TikTok video (right):

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Screenshot comparisons between the clip shared in false posts (left) and the TikTok video (right):

Crucially, the TikTok post is tagged with a location -- the Turkish city of Adana (archived link).

Adana was one of several cities in the country's south affected by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria on February 6.

A Turkish-language caption on the TikTok video refers to the building as "Kubilay".

"Kubilay apartment building demolition slow motion #earthquake #adanaydemolition #adanacity," it says.

Keyword searches on Google turned up Turkish media reports on the building collapse that contain similar footage and confirm the location.

These reports, including one by CNNTurk, say the tower underwent a controlled demolition after it was partially destroyed in the quake (archive link).

"In the Çukurova district of Adana, the section still standing of the Kubilay apartment building, half of which collapsed in the second earthquake, was demolished," says a video report by Turkish newspaper Hurriyet (archive link).

AFP was able to locate the Kubilay tower on Google Maps and it can be seen pictured here on Street View in April 2021 (archive link).

It was situated on a street called Turgut Örzal Boulevard.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video that accompanies the false posts and the Kubilay building as seen on Google Maps (right):

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A screenshot comparison between the video that accompanies the false posts and the Kubilay building as seen on Google Maps (right)

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about the Morocco earthquake, including here and here.