Fact Check: The place where Moses split the Red Sea? Nope, this video is from China!

A breathtaking video of a narrow stretch of sandy land surrounded by sparkling water is making the rounds on social media. Allegedly, this was the same place where the Jewish prophet Moses, as the myth goes, split the Red Sea to help his people escape the Egyptian army.

According to religious scriptures, Moses guided the Hebrews out of Egypt where they were being ill-treated as slaves. It is believed that as they reached the Red Sea, Moses stretched out his hand, and the waters split, allowing them safe passage.

An X user shared this video and wrote, “This is the place in the Red Sea, where Hazrat Musa created a passage for his people to escape from the army of Pharaoh, Ramses II. The passage appears twice a year and then disappears.” The archive of one such post can be seen here.

India Today found that the video in question has nothing to do with the Red Sea. Instead, it shows the fishbone-shaped sandbank in China’s Dongshan Island.

OUR PROBE

We noticed some people reacting to the viral video pointed out that this was Dongshan Island in China. A quick reverse search of the keyframes of this video led us to a Pinterest post that also said the video shows the fishbone sandbar of Dongshan Island, located in the Fujian Province of China.

The video here was credited to a Douyin user with ID “@207697002”. Douyin is a video-sharing app similar to TikTok that’s also owned by the latter’s parent company, ByteDance.

We then found the person with the Douyin ID number “@207697002” shared this video on October 30, 2021. Its caption in Chinese language said: “Maldives? No, this is the fishbone sandbar of Dongshan Island, Fujian. Bring them to Dongshan Island.”

The user’s bio stated that they shared content related to landscape photography. And on this account, we found many similar videos.

Using keyword search, we found that “China Plus Culture”, a news outlet that covers China’s culture and tourism, also shared this video on November 5, 2021, with the caption, “Yugu Shazhou, which translates to ‘fishbone-shaped sandbank’, in Fujian's Dongshan Island, has been attracting hordes of tourists with its natural beauty and catchy name. Local fishermen say the moniker relates to a natural ‘miracle’ whereby this uniquely-shaped sandbank appears as if by magic whenever the tide goes out.”

China’s state-controlled media People’s Daily China also shared a video from this location in 2020, which looks quite similar to the viral video.

According to the Global Times, the fishbone-shaped sandbank is located in the Qixia Village of Dongshan County, in southeast China's Fujian Province.

WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY

We sent the viral post to the former chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Firoz Bakht Ahmed, who is also the grand nephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

He told India Today that the “parting of the sea” event is generally believed to have happened in the Red Sea and not near China. “There could be some differences in the opinion of experts about the exact place where this happened, however, it certainly took place in the sea area near Egypt in the Middle East Region," he added.