After the earthquake that struck the Al Haouz region on Friday, many fake news stories went viral on social media and other media outlets. This prompted Morocco’s news agency MAP to urge influencers, writers, and average citizens to take time to distinguish between fake and true news.
Netizens posted videos showing the collapse of buildings in Casablanca that date back to 2022 and referred them to the current earthquake that took place Friday.
Internet users also posted pictures of damaged port facilities and overturned ships on the docks, but these pictures were also fake and belonged to other incidents that happened elsewhere in the world, specifically the Pacific Ocean coastal earthquake in Tohoku, Japan in 2011.
Foreign media outlets published posts claiming that people coming to hospitals had died on the ground outside hospital entrances due to a lack of beds, but these posts were also fake and baseless. The regional director of health in Marrakech confirmed that hospitals in the city are operating at full capacity and able to receive more patients.
MAP added that a widely circulated picture of Marrakech showing cement barriers in some neighborhoods after the Al Haouz earthquake is also fake. The picture was first published on September 6, two days before the earthquake occurred.
The agency has also found several social media posts claiming that no rescue or assistance operations are being carried out in the Ouahat Sidi Brahim, a rural community in the Marrakech region. The local authorities have refuted these claims, confirming that necessary interventions have been made since the earthquake occurred and that rescue operations are ongoing, with various measures activated on-site.
In the same vein, some pictures on social media show the collapse of buildings in Rabat, which are also fake news. These pictures are actually related to collapses that occurred in Marrakech.