Morocco earthquake – News Agency nabakhabar

Morocco earthquake: Remote and isolated mountain villages struggle to cope

News Agency nabakhabar — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 19:30:40 +0000

Brahim Boudad spent six nervous hours on Friday night. His family was in Amizmiz, a small Moroccan town at the base of the High Atlas, while he was some 55km away in Marrakech when the devastating earthquake hit.

“My family was trapped inside,” Boudad told Middle East Eye. “I was waiting [for news] until 1 a.m. Then my father called me, it made me so happy.”

Boudad’s family were among the lucky ones. In the small town, at least 25 people are estimated to have died, one resident said. Many houses were flattened.

Amizmiz, home to some 20,000 people, is located in Al Haouz province, the epicenter of the earthquake and the hardest-hit region.

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Residents had spent the day looking for survivors using basic tools, as outside help was slow to arrive. People with harrowing experiences gathered in open spaces, with little movement on the streets.

Some people sat in a cafe that opened late into the night. Others laid out on the street sleeping. One kneeled to pray.

“I saw death with my own eyes here,” recounted Moustafa, sitting at a crowded plastic table, eating communally with the men around him.

People sit around a bonfire in Moulay Brahim village, in Al Haouz province, following a powerful earthquake in Morocco, 9 September 2023 (Reuters)

Meanwhile, army vehicles parked along roads and soldiers spread throughout the village. But after nightfall, there was little to be done with the extent of the damage hard to judge in the dark.

“The army? They only arrived later; it was the people here,” said Moustafa, as he gestured to the group of survivors camping out in the dirt lot around him.

Mountain towns like Amizmiz are difficult to access in the best of times, slowing any attempt to bring in help. It took five hours for the first outside aid to arrive, even in Amizmiz, which is located at the foot of the mountain range.

Only a short distance away, entire villages collapsed. These are small douars, tiny Amazigh villages, often with just one family.

One man passes around a phone showing a video of the near-total destruction in Tafeghaghte village, where a father spent the day digging graves for his two young daughters.

Already impoverished, and with no outside help arriving quickly, the extent of damage in places like Tafeghaghte is still unclear, but will surely mount.

Inaccessibility to some remote areas was made worse by falling rocks, which blocked roads and cut off villages from each other.

Shock and solidarity

In Agadir city, a three-hour drive southwest of Marrakech, the quake was less severe. Still, the streets were filled with people terrified to enter their homes.

WhatsApp quickly became a lifeline as desperate calls were made to check on family and friends across the country. Information and updates were passed from one group to another.

Many were relieved to know loved ones were safe, but learning that the quake was felt as far as Tangier and that buildings had fallen in Safi and Marrakech, was an alarming indication of the severity.

For those who managed to sleep in the morning, waking up to the news of 600 casualties, a number that continued to climb into the thousands as the day went on, was devastating.

News from the mountains close to the epicenter came more slowly due to power outages, blocked roads and connection failures.

Further inland, in Taroudant city, the tremors were more severe. Entire families fled to camps along the road outside the city’s walls.

“Yesterday, what happened, we couldn’t believe it,” one young woman, who didn’t give a name, described her night through a phone translation app to MEE.

“We left the house in fear. We slept outside all night.”

Many like her spent the second night outdoors, either due to the destruction of their homes or out of fear of aftershocks.

A family sets a sleeping area on a farm after their home was damaged by the earthquake, in Ijjoukak village near Marrakech on 9 September 2023 (AP)

On the other side of Taroudant, the blood bank was filled with people jostling to give blood.

One man, Abdellatif Ezzaki, looks at the time in surprise – he’s waited more than two hours to donate.

“It was the first time I’ve seen such an atmosphere. Everyone in solidarity and everyone ready to help,” Ezzaki reflects. “The least we can do is help.”

By Saturday evening, the roads into the worst-affected regions of the Atlas Mountains were quiet. A few cars and the occasional ambulance pass in the opposite direction towards safer ground, but the region is poor and many are unable to leave.

In the makeshift encampments, both in the city and the country, the dominant feeling is shock. The country isn’t accustomed to earthquakes, particularly of this scale and devastation. But there was little more to say or do other than try to endure another night.

“I want for people to just pray for Morocco, for my location, everywhere,” Brahim says. “Just to pray for us because people are so destroyed, our homes are destroyed.”

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Morocco earthquake kills more than a thousand as rescue efforts intensify

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 13:00:10 +0000

Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in decades has killed over 1,000 people, authorities said Saturday, causing widespread damage and sending terrified residents and tourists scrambling to safety in the middle of the night.

The 6.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area 72 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of tourist hotspot Marrakesh at 11:11 pm (2211 GMT) Friday, the US Geological Survey reported.

Strong tremors were also felt in the coastal cities of Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira.

“I was nearly asleep when I heard the doors and the shutters banging,” said Ghannou Najem, a Casablanca resident in her 80s who was visiting Marrakesh when the quake hit.

“I went outside in a panic. I thought I was going to die alone.”

It is the strongest-ever quake to hit the North African kingdom, and one expert described it as the region’s “biggest in more than 120 years”.

“Where destructive earthquakes are rare, buildings are simply not constructed robustly enough… so many collapses, resulting in high casualties,” said Bill McGuire, professor emeritus at Britain’s University College London.

Updated interior ministry figures on Saturday showed the quake killed at least 1,037 people, the vast majority in Al-Haouz, the epicentre, and Taroudant provinces.

Another 1,204 people were injured, including 721 in critical condition, the ministry said.

The ministry also recorded deaths in Ouarzazate, Chichaoua, Azilal and Youssoufia provinces, as well as in Marrakesh, Agadir and the Casablanca area.

‘Unbearable’ screams

Faisal Badour, an engineer, said he felt the quake three times in his building in Marrakesh.

“There are families who are still sleeping outside because we were so scared of the force of this earthquake,” he said. “The screaming and crying was unbearable.”

In Moulay Brahim village, in the mountains of Al-Haouz province near the quake’s epicentre, rescuers were searching for survivors in the rubble of collapsed houses, AFP correspondents reported.

On a nearby hill, residents began digging graves for the victims, the correspondents said.

Frenchman Michael Bizet, 43, who owns three traditional riad houses in Marrakesh’s old town, told AFP that he was in bed when the quake struck.

“I thought my bed was going to fly away. I went out into the street half-naked and immediately went to see my riads. It was total chaos, a real catastrophe, madness,” he said.

Footage on social media showed part of a minaret collapsed on Jemaa el-Fna square in the historical city.

An AFP correspondent saw hundreds of people flocking to the square to spend the night for fear of aftershocks, some with blankets while others slept on the ground.

Mimi Theobold, 25, a tourist from England, said she was with friends on a restaurant terrace when the tables began shaking and plates went flying.

Houda Outassaf, a local resident, said she was “still in shock” after feeling the earth shake beneath her feet — and losing relatives.

“I have at least 10 members of my family who died… I can hardly believe it, as I was with them no more than two days ago,” she said.

The interior ministry said authorities have “mobilised all the necessary resources to intervene and help the affected areas”.

The regional blood transfusion centre in Marrakesh called on residents to donate blood for those injured.

The army has set up a field hospital in Moulay Brahim and deployed “significant human and logistical resources” to support search and rescue efforts in Al-Haouz, state news agency MAP said.

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