India TV Fact Check: The recent earthquake in Morocco, which struck the Atlas Mountains region, has indeed resulted in a significant loss of life, with at least 2,900 reported deaths and widespread devastation in Marrakesh and the surrounding areas. Amid this tragic event, several videos and pictures are circulating on social media claiming to be from the earthquake in the North African country. One such video claims that people in Morocco continued to offer namaz (prayer) even during such a strong earthquake. When we fact-checked this video, it turned out to be misleading and unrelated to the Morocco earthquake.
What is going viral?
This video, posted on Facebook, depicts a large group of people offering namaz (prayer) at some place. While they are engaged in their prayers, earthquake tremors occur, and electricity goes off. Despite the tremours, the people in the video can be seen to continue with their prayers, and there was no panic. The video was shared on Facebook by a user named Yaqeenah Yusuf with a caption in English that reads, "They didn’t even hesitate to leave the Salah during the earthquake! The power of Imaan SubhanAllah! May Allah grant the ranks of Shahada to our Muwahid brothers and sisters that died in the earthquake of Morocco and give their families Sabr and reward them for their hardships." A Facebook user has described this video as an earthquake in Morocco.
India TV Fact Check
We carefully examined the viral video, and then a reverse image search was conducted using a keyframe from the video on Google. This search yielded several results. During this process, a video was found on a YouTube channel named "Al-Tanasuh Satellite Channel." This video was uploaded on February 26, 2023. It featured the same footage of people praying during an earthquake. The title of this video was in Arabic and translated to English as "Witness the stability of the worshipers during an earthquake in the city of Dana in the northern Idlib countryside."
One thing became quite clear - if this video was uploaded on this channel on February 26, 2023, it couldn't possibly be related to the earthquake that occurred in Morocco. Following this, tried to find out about this YouTube channel, 'Al-Tansuh Satellite Channel', which had uploaded this video. Our investigation revealed that Tanasuh TV is a Libyan television news channel. Therefore, this video was uploaded from an official account of a Libyan TV channel.
Following this, we further solidified our investigation by searching on Google about news related to people offering namaz during an earthquake in Idlib, Syria. We found another video on Al Jazeera Arabic's YouTube channel. This video was also the same one that had been uploaded on the 'Al-Tansuh' channel. On Al Jazeera Arabic's YouTube channel, this video was uploaded on February 26, 2023, as well. The video's description, written in Arabic, stated, "Syrians have shared a CCTV video on social media, showing a moment of stability among worshippers during an earthquake at Al-Farouk Mosque in the rural area of Dana in Idlib on February 20." The clip shows that despite the earthquake of magnitude 6.4, the worshippers did not move from their positions, and its epicentre was in Turkey's Hatay province.
Notably, on February 20, 2023, two powerful earthquakes with magnitudes of 6.4 and 5.8 struck the northern regions of Syria and the Hatay Province in southern Turkey. These earthquakes came shortly after the devastating earthquake on February 6, which had a significant impact, resulting in the loss of more than 45,000 lives in both countries.
What was found in the investigation
The presence of this video on an Arabic-language YouTube channel suggests that it is related to an earthquake in the city of Dana in the northern Idlib countryside, rather than the earthquake in Morocco. This viral video is not from the recent earthquake in Morocco but from six months ago when a devastating earthquake struck northern Syria and the Hatay Province in southern Turkey. Therefore, the claim that this video is from the recent earthquake in Morocco is not accurate. It is being falsely claimed and circulated on social media.
