Video of Muslims praying during Syria quake falsely linked to Morocco disaster

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 29, 2023 at 11:58
Updated on September 29, 2023 at 12:59
4 min read
By AFP Indonesia, AFP Middle East & North Africa, AFP Belgrade

A video has been viewed millions of times in social media posts falsely claiming it shows Muslims in Morocco continuing their prayers in a mosque when the country was hit by a powerful quake in September 2023. The video had in fact circulated online in news reports about the massive earthquake that struck Syria in February 2023.

"Muslims in Morocco continued their congregational prayer when the earthquake struck," says the Indonesian-language caption of a Facebook post uploaded on September 10, 2023.

The post features a one-minute 37-second video showing dozens of people praying in rows.

At the 32-second mark, the lights in the room start to flicker and eventually go out, activating the camera's night vision. The video gets shaky but no one leaves the room and they continue with their prayers.

The Indonesian-language sticker text overlaid to the video says: "Seconds before earthquake struck Morocco. WHILE THEY ARE PRAYING".

Another sticker text on the video, written in Arabic, says: "Watch the worshippers in the mosque the moment the earthquake hit Morocco."

Screenshot of the false post, taken on September 20, 2023

The video surfaced shortly after a powerful earthquake killed 2,900 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless in Muslim-majority Morocco.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake, which hit Al-Haouz province south of tourist hub Marrakesh on September 8, 2023, was the country's strongest on record.

The video has racked up over 12 million combined views after it was shared with a similar false claim on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok here and here, SnackVideo and X, formerly Twitter.

Similar posts also circulated in Serbian and Arabic.

Syria earthquake

Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Google and Yandex found the video has previously circulated in news reports about a massive quake in Turkey and Syria in February 2023.

Al Jazeera Syria published the footage on Facebook on February 26, 2023, with an Arabic-language caption that reads: "The video documents the first moments of the Hatay earthquake on February 20 at Al-Farouq Mosque in the city of Al-Dana in Idlib" (archived link).

Hatay is a province in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border, while Al-Dana is a town in Idlib governorate in Syria's north.

On February 20, 2023, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey's southern province of Hatay and northern Syria, killing six people and sparking fresh panic after a massive February 6 tremor left over 45,000 dead in both countries, AFP reported.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine video from Al Jazeera Syria (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine video from Al Jazeera Syria (right)

The video also circulated widely in February 2023 news reports here and here as well as on social media posts here and here about the Syria earthquake, seven months before the one in Morocco (archived links here, here, here and here).

Turkey-based media organisation Yeni Safak said the video shows surveillance footage from the Al-Farouq Mosque in Al-Dana, Syria.

The interior of the mosque seen in the video corresponds to earlier footage of the Al-Farouq Mosque broadcast by Al Jazeera Mubasher on Facebook on April 2, 2022 (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and footage of the mosque from Al Jazeera Mubasher (right), with corresponding features marked by AFP:

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and footage of the mosque from Al Jazeera Mubasher (right)

AFP has debunked misinformation around the Morocco earthquake here and here.

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