Old photos shared with false claim they show aftermath of deadly 2023 Morocco earthquake
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 18, 2023 at 09:13
- 4 min read
- By AFP Bangladesh
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The Bengali-language Facebook post shared on September 10, 2023 said an earthquake that ranged from 6.8 to 7.0 magnitude hit Morocco and was "considered the deadliest earthquake in the country's history".
The post also features four images of partially collapsed buildings.
Some of the posts also share another picture that appears to show a ship that has run ashore.
The posts surfaced after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Morocco on September 8, killing around 3,000 people and injuring 5,600.
The disaster also damaged about 60,000 homes across 3,000 villages in the High Atlas mountains and their surroundings.
Similar posts were also shared elsewhere on Facebook here and here.
While one of the pictures shows the aftermath of the jolt in Morocco, other photos were in fact taken after earthquakes in Turkey and Italy and a tsunami in Japan.
Old disaster photos
The first photo was published by Reuters on February 6, 2023 -- seven months before the Morocco quake (archived link).
Its caption reads: "Rescue workers search for survivors under the rubble following an earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey February 6, 2023."
AFP reported the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and neighbouring Syria killed more than 50,000 people in both countries.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image shared in the misleading posts (left) and the Reuters photo (right):
The photo in the second row of the misleading post was also taken in Turkey after the jolt in February 2023.
It was published by the Associated Press (AP) with the caption: "Emergency teams search for people in a destroyed building in Adana, Turkey, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. A powerful quake has knocked down multiple buildings in southeast Turkey and Syria and many casualties are feared" (archived link).
The fourth photo was found on Pixabay, an image aggregator website that credited it to a photographer named Angelo Giordano, without any caption (archived here).
A photo that shows a similar scene was published by Getty Images after an earthquake hit Italy's Onna region in 2009 that killed more than 300 people (archived here).
The caption of the Getty Image photo reads: "L'AQUILA, ITALY - JUNE 02: The streets of Onna, where 41 residents of the village were killed in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck the Abruzzo region of Italy on April 6, 2009 The death toll has risen to nearly 300 in the region on June 2, 2009 in Onna, Italy."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image shared in the false post (left) and the photo published by Getty Images (right):
The picture that shows a ship that has washed ashore was taken following the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
The photo was published by AP with the caption: "Ships drifted by tsunami sit on the land near a port in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, Saturday morning, March 12, 2011 after Japan's biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday" (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image shared in the false post (left) and the original AP photo (right):
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the Morocco earthquake here and here.
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