Morocco Quake Kills More than 1,000 People

A general view of damage in the historic city of Marrakech, following a powerful earthquake in Morocco, September 9, 2023. (Reuters)
A general view of damage in the historic city of Marrakech, following a powerful earthquake in Morocco, September 9, 2023. (Reuters)
TT

Morocco Quake Kills More than 1,000 People

A general view of damage in the historic city of Marrakech, following a powerful earthquake in Morocco, September 9, 2023. (Reuters)
A general view of damage in the historic city of Marrakech, following a powerful earthquake in Morocco, September 9, 2023. (Reuters)

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 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of tourist hotspot Marrakech 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 Marrakech 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 collapse, 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 epicenter, 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 Marrakech, Agadir and the Casablanca area.  

'Unbearable' screams  

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

"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 epicenter, 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 Marrakech'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 historic 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 "mobilized all the necessary resources to intervene and help the affected areas".  

The regional blood transfusion center in Marrakech 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.  

Significant damage likely  

"We heard screams at the time of the tremor," a resident of Essaouira, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Marrakech, told AFP. "Pieces of facades have fallen."  

The USGS PAGER system, which provides preliminary assessments on the impact of earthquakes, issued a "red alert" for economic losses, saying extensive damage is probable.  

Foreign leaders expressed their condolences and many offered assistance, including Israel with which Morocco normalized relations in 2020.  

US President Joe Biden said in a statement he was "deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation".  

Chinese leader Xi Jinping expressed "deep grief for the victims" and hope that "the Moroccan government and people will be able to overcome the impact of this disaster", according to Beijing's state media.  

Pope Francis expressed "his profound solidarity with those who are touched in the flesh and heart by this tragedy".  

The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Algeria, where the Algerian Civil Defense said it had not caused any damage or casualties.  

In 2004, at least 628 people were killed and 926 injured when a quake hit Al Hoceima in northeastern Morocco, and in 1960 a magnitude 6.7 quake in Agadir killed more than 12,000.  

The 7.3-magnitude El Asnam earthquake in Algeria killed 2,500 people and left at least 300,000 homeless in 1980.



In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
TT

In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

Ayman Jaber’s memories are rooted in every corner of Mhaibib, the village in southern Lebanon he refers to as his “habibti,” the Arabic word for “beloved.” The root of the village’s name means “the lover” or “the beloved.”
Reminiscing about his childhood sweetheart, the 45-year-old avionics technician talks about how the young pair would meet in a courtyard near his uncle's house, The Associated Press said.
“I used to wait for her there to see her,” Jaber recalls with a smile. "Half of the village knew about us.”
The fond memory contrasts sharply with recent images of his hometown.
Mhaibib, perched on a hill close to the Israeli border, was leveled by a series of explosions on Oct. 16. The Israeli army released a video showing blasts ripping through the village in the Marjayoun province, razing dozens of homes to dust.
The scene has been repeated in villages across southern Lebanon since Israel launched its invasion a month ago with the stated goal of pushing Hezbollah militants back from the border. On Oct. 26, massive explosions in and around Odaisseh sparked an earthquake alert in northern Israel.
Israel says it wants to destroy a massive network of Hezbollah tunnels in the border area. But for the people who have been displaced, the attacks are also destroying a lifetime of memories.
Mhaibib had endured sporadic targeting since Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging fire on Oct. 8 last year.
Jaber was living in Aramoun, just south of Beirut, before the war, and the rest of his family evacuated from Mhaibib after the border skirmishes ignited. Some of them left their possessions behind and sought refuge in Syria. Jaber's father and two sisters, Zeinab and Fatima, moved in with him.
In the living room of their temporary home, the siblings sip Arabic coffee while their father chain-smokes.
“My father breaks my heart. He is 70 years old, frail and has been waiting for over a year to return to Mhaibib,” Zeinab said. “He left his five cows there. He keeps asking, ‘Do you think they’re still alive?’”
Mhaibib was a close-knit rural village, with about 70 historic stone homes lining its narrow streets. Families grew tobacco, wheat, mulukhiyah (jute mallow) and olives, planting them each spring and waking before dawn in the summer to harvest the crops.
Hisham Younes, who runs the environmental organization Green Southerners, says generations of southerners admired Mhaibib for its one-or two-story stone homes, some built by Jaber’s grandfather and his friends.
“Detonating an entire village is a form of collective punishment and war crime. What do they gain from destroying shrines, churches and old homes?” Younes asks.
Abdelmoe’m Shucair, the mayor of neighboring Mays el Jabal, told the Associated Press that the last few dozen families living in Mhaibib fled before the Israeli destruction began, as had residents of surrounding villages.
Jaber's sisters attended school in Mays al-Jabal. That school was also destroyed in a series of massive explosions.
After finishing her studies in Beirut, Zeinab worked in a pharmacy in the neighboring village of Blida. That pharmacy, too, is gone after the Israeli military detonated part of that village. Israeli forces even bulldozed their village cemetery where generations of family members are buried.
“I don’t belong to any political group,” Zeinab says. “Why did my home, my life, have to be taken from me?”
She says she can't bring herself to watch the video of her village’s destruction. “When my brother played it, I ran from the room.”
To process what’s happening, Fatima says she closes her eyes and takes herself back to Mhaibib. She sees the sun setting, vividly painting the sky stretching over their family gatherings on the upstairs patio, framed by their mother’s flowers.
The family painstakingly expanded their home over a decade.
“It took us 10 years to add just one room,” Fatima said. “First, my dad laid the flooring, then the walls, the roof and the glass windows. My mom sold a year’s worth of homemade preserves to furnish it.” She paused. “And it was gone in an instant.”
In the midst of war, Zeinab married quietly. Now she’s six months pregnant. She had hoped to be back in Mhaibib in time for the delivery.
Her brother was born when Mhaibib and other villages in southern Lebanon were under Israeli occupation. Jaber remembers traveling from Beirut to Mhaibib, passing through Israeli checkpoints and a final crossing before entering the village.
“There were security checks and interrogations. The process used to take a full or half a day,” he says. And inside the village, they always felt like they were “under surveillance.”
His family also fled the village during the war with Israel in 2006, and when they returned they found their homes vandalized but still standing. An uncle and a grandmother were among those killed in the 34-day conflict, but a loquat tree the matriarch had planted next to their home endured.
This time, there is no home to return to and even the loquat tree is gone.
Jaber worries Israel will again set up a permanent presence in southern Lebanon and that he won't be able to reconstruct the home he built over the last six years for himself, his wife and their two sons.
“When this war ends, we’ll go back,” Ayman says quietly. “We’ll pitch tents if we have to and stay until we rebuild our houses.”