Old Video of Imam Praying During Earthquake in Indonesia Shared As Recent

An old video from Bali, Indonesia showing Muslim devotees continue with their prayers despite a strong earthquake, is going viral online and being shared as a recent incident.

BOOM found that the original video is from 2018 and shows an Imam praying in a mosque during an earthquake in Bali.

The viral video, which is slightly over a minute, shows an imam leading a group of Muslims in prayer when suddenly the group begins to feel earthquake tremors. Despite the tremors, the imam continues praying while placing his hand on the wall for support.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck the Indonesian island of Java at around 1:21 pm local time on Monday, November 21, 2022. Rescue operations are underway, and Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNBP) has recorded a death toll of 103. However, regional governor Ridwan Kamil has said that the death toll is 162. According to the BBC, the reasons for this discrepancy are unclear. The viral video is being shared in this context.

Amid this, the video of a man praying in a mosque has been circulated with the false claim that it is recent. The video was uploaded on Twitter with the caption, "During the #Earthquake in Indonesia, worshipers continued to pray Subhan Allah in the mosque"

Click here for the tweet and here for the archive.

Click here for the tweet and here for the archive.

FACT-CHECK

We ran a keyword search with "man prays in mosque during earthquake" and "Indonesia" and found the same video uploaded by the Guardian on August 6, 2018. According to the description, the imam was praying in a mosque while an earthquake stuck Lombok, which is 800 kms away from Java. Lombok was one of the many places in Indonesia that felt tremors from a series of earthquakes in August 2018.

According to the BBC, the name of the Imam is Arafat, who explained that his life was only for god to take and so the mosque was "the best place to take shelter".

Several Indian outlets including Outlook and Financial Express reported the incident in 2018.