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A powerful earthquake struck Morocco on Friday night, killing more than 1,000 people in the High Atlas region near the medieval city of Marrakech.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday morning that 1,037 people had been killed and 672 injured. The earthquake struck shortly after 11 p.m., with the governorates of Hauz, Ouarzazate, Marrakech, Azilal, Chichaoua and Taroudant the worst affected. The tremors were felt as far away as Rabat and Casablanca on the Atlantic coast, and some residents fled their homes and spent the night in the streets.
An official told Reuters that most of the dead lived in remote mountain villages in the High Atlas Mountains in central Morocco. Landslides triggered by the quake prevented rescue workers from reaching some villages. Authorities in Marrakech called on residents to donate blood.
The Moroccan Geophysical Center said the quake, which struck in the Igil region of the High Atlas Mountains, had a magnitude of 7.2 and was the country’s worst since a 2004 earthquake in Al Hoceima, north of the Rif Mountains, killed 600 people. the strongest earthquake. The United States Geological Survey put the latest earthquake’s magnitude at 6.8.
Video footage showed cars covered in rubble on a street in Marrakech’s old town, where buildings and mosque minarets collapsed. Fearing aftershocks, hundreds of locals and tourists fled their hotels and homes and gathered in the city’s famous Jemaa al-Fnaa square.
CCTV footage of the moment of the Marrakech earthquake © Reuters
CCTV footage of the moment of the Marrakech earthquake
The old town center, with its markets, traditional houses, museums and mosques, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Local reports said part of the medieval wall surrounding the city center had cracked.
Montasir Yitri, a resident of the mountain village of Asni near the epicenter, told Reuters that many houses there were damaged. “Our neighbors are under the rubble,” he added.
In addition to damage and casualties, authorities will also be concerned about the earthquake’s impact on tourism. Marrakech is a popular tourist destination and visitor numbers this year are expected to exceed pre-COVID-19 levels. Morocco is expected to attract a record 14 million tourists in 2023, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
